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Diffstat (limited to 'kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt | 30 |
1 files changed, 27 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt b/kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt index cc071dc33..dc3e70391 100644 --- a/kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt +++ b/kernel/Documentation/x86/mtrr.txt @@ -1,7 +1,31 @@ MTRR (Memory Type Range Register) control -3 Jun 1999 -Richard Gooch -<rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> + +Richard Gooch <rgooch@atnf.csiro.au> - 3 Jun 1999 +Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@do-not-panic.com> - April 9, 2015 + +=============================================================================== +Phasing out MTRR use + +MTRR use is replaced on modern x86 hardware with PAT. Direct MTRR use by +drivers on Linux is now completely phased out, device drivers should use +arch_phys_wc_add() in combination with ioremap_wc() to make MTRR effective on +non-PAT systems while a no-op but equally effective on PAT enabled systems. + +Even if Linux does not use MTRRs directly, some x86 platform firmware may still +set up MTRRs early before booting the OS. They do this as some platform +firmware may still have implemented access to MTRRs which would be controlled +and handled by the platform firmware directly. An example of platform use of +MTRRs is through the use of SMI handlers, one case could be for fan control, +the platform code would need uncachable access to some of its fan control +registers. Such platform access does not need any Operating System MTRR code in +place other than mtrr_type_lookup() to ensure any OS specific mapping requests +are aligned with platform MTRR setup. If MTRRs are only set up by the platform +firmware code though and the OS does not make any specific MTRR mapping +requests mtrr_type_lookup() should always return MTRR_TYPE_INVALID. + +For details refer to Documentation/x86/pat.txt. + +=============================================================================== On Intel P6 family processors (Pentium Pro, Pentium II and later) the Memory Type Range Registers (MTRRs) may be used to control |