On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 06:45:10AM -0400, Stephen Powell wrote: > Furtherfore, a non-PAE kernel is > useful even on PAE-capable hardware. The main purpose of PAE is to > address memory above 4G. But if the machine has less than 4G of > memory, what does a PAE-capable kernel buy you? PAE-capable kernels > tend to be a bit bigger, all other things being equal, than non-PAE > kernels, which chews up more precious memory with no obvious benefit.
One such benefit is that the NX bit (non-executable memory pages) is only available with 64 bit page table entries, which in turn depend on PAE mode. This could be an argument for preferring a PAE kernel on PAE-capable hardware. Regards, Mirko
