systems produce unknown NMIs for no
reason at all. Huang’s solution was to
create a whitelist of systems that were
known not to do this, and his patch
would work only on that whitelisted set
of systems. But, Ingo Molnar suggested
using active event filters to allow
unknown NMIs to go through a localized
policy decision-making process first, so
the decision to panic the system could
be made on a per-system basis.
Active event filters, as Ingo pointed
out, would allow a certain portion of
the decision-making process to occur
while still in kernel space, without
having to return to userland. This is key,
Digital music and, more recently, digital
video and digital books, have changed the
way we consume media. Comic books are
no different, and with the advent of tablet
computers, digital comics are becoming
more and more popular. If you don’t have
a tablet computer, however, viewing CBR
(or their compressed version, CBZ) files is
as simple as installing a CBR reader and
downloading your favorite comic.
[ UPFRONT ]
because when the system is crashing, it
often is not feasible to pass control over
to a user-space program. But in the
case where the active event filters
determined that a crash probably was
not occurring, they could hand control
to a user-space daemon that would
make additional decisions about how
to handle the unknown NMI.
Active event filters apparently are
tremendously powerful and soon may
be seen in use throughout the kernel
as a way of standardizing a number of
disparate behaviors that currently are
handled in an ad hoc manner.
—ZACK BROWN
will turn up some free comic resources,
like the one shown here: Cory Doctorow’s
Futuristic Takes of the Here and Now. If
you miss the comic books of your youth,
or if you still enjoy them on a regular
basis, you owe it to yourself to check out
CBR/CBZ files.—SHAWN POWERS
