Software and hardware obsolescence in the kernel

Posted Aug 30, 2020 18:10 UTC (Sun) by epa (subscriber, #39769)
In reply to: Software and hardware obsolescence in the kernel by willy
Parent article: Software and hardware obsolescence in the kernel

Yes that’s exactly what I am saying, make the pointers 10 bytes long. Using 16 bytes would increase your hardware and electricity costs by 60% for little benefit. (Assuming a large system with lots of RAM)

Software and hardware obsolescence in the kernel

Posted Aug 30, 2020 18:12 UTC (Sun) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (1 responses)

There's a reason we didn't go to 48 bit pointers from 32 bit. I don't think you've thought through the consequences of 10 byte pointers.

Software and hardware obsolescence in the kernel

Posted Aug 30, 2020 23:26 UTC (Sun) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> I don't think you've thought through the consequences of 10 byte pointers.

Please share your thoughts (or references) if you have.

(as already mentioned by jem above:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6716946/why-do-x86-64... )