On September 9, 2025 3:24:29 PM PDT, Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> wrote: >On Tue, 9 Sept 2025 at 14:39, H. Peter Anvin <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> 1 GB systems used highmem too, sadly. And 1 GB was the norm for a big chuck >> of the late 32-bit era. > >Well, while on x86 1GB systems did use highmem, they'd typically not >use very much of it. > >IOW, they'd have about 900MB as lowmem (ok, I think it was 896MB to be >exact), with something like 120MB highmem. > >So they'd either lose a bit of memory, or they'd use the 2G:2G split. > >Or - and I think this is the main point - they'd stay on old kernels >like the ancient museum pieces they are. > >I'm not convinced it makes sense to have a modern kernel on a museum piece. > > Linus >
Certainly. And the 2:2 split is probably the right thing for the old machines anyway.
