Re: vm/fs meetup in september?

["Jared Hulbert" <jaredeh@gmail.com>]

> > Christoph> So what you mean is "swap on flash" ?  Defintively sounds
> > Christoph> like an interesting topic, although I'm not too sure it's
> > Christoph> all that filesystem-related.
>
> I wouldn't want to call it swap, as this carries with it block-io
> connotations.  It's really mmap on flash.

Yes it is really mmap on flash.  But you are "swapping" pages from RAM
to be mmap'ed on flash.  Also the flash-io complexities are similar to
the block-io layer.  I think "swap on flash" is fair.  Though that
might be confused with making swap work on a NAND flash, which is very
much like the current block-io approach.  "Mmappable swap on flash" is
more exact, I suppose.

> > You need either a block translation layer,
>
> Are you suggesting to go through the block layer to reach the flash?

Well the obvious route would be to have this management layer use the
MTD, I can't see anything wrong with that.

> > or a (swap) filesystem that
> > understands flash peculiarities in order to make such a thing work.
> > The standard Linux swap format will not work.
>
> Correct.
>
> BTW, you may want to have a look at my "[RFC] VM: I have a dream..." thread.

Interesting.  This idea does allow for swap to be access directly.