Re: [TECH TOPIC] Implementing malloc

"H. Peter Anvin" <[email protected]> Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:48:25 -0700
Newsgroups dev.linux.lists.ksummit
Message-ID <[email protected]>
On 2026-06-29 07:29, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> malloc() is a standard part of the C library.  Yet we force new Linux
> programmers to learn the difference between vmalloc(), kmalloc() and
> kvmalloc().  They even have to acquire an understanding of the difference
> between GFP_KERNEL and GFP_ATOMIC.  If they are particularly unlucky,
> they may have to understand other combinations of GFP flags.

You *NEED* to understand that if you are going to program kernel code. There
probably isn't anything more important, *really*.

The kernel is a memory manager first, a scheduler second, all else is commentary.

	-hpa