Re: [patch] arca-vm-6, killed kswapd [Re: [patch] new-vm improvement , [Re: 2.2.0 Bug summary]]

Alan Cox
1999-01-04T21:08:40Z

> Boom. You just killed the machine with your patch, because maybe the
> GPF_ATOMIC things are what the machine is doing. Imagine a machine that
> acts as a router - it might not even be running any normal user processes
> at _all_, but it had damn well better make sure that memory is always
> available some way. "kswapd" did that for us, and Rik's happiness counts
> as nothing in face of basic facts of life like that. Sorry.

Its performance properties are very interesting however. They do seem to suggest
kswapd should be more of a last resort.

Alan