Kernel zeroes memory?

Question

I am using Debian squeeze and have noticed that memory is always zeroed. Is this new in linux distributions ? Some time ago, I believe I could use puts() and garbage would b

Answer 1

Your code does not test if all memory is zeroed - it tests if two specific bytes are zero - a[0] and a[5000]. Also, malloc() has nothing to do with the kernel - it is a C library function, not a system call. It is highly unlikely that its implementers zero memory - what you are seeing is just some random quirk of your particular configuration.