Re: 2.6.3-mm3

Nick Piggin
2004-02-23T03:00:21Z

Andrew Morton wrote:

>Nick Piggin <piggin@cyberone.com.au> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>Andrew Morton wrote:
>>
>>
>>>ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.3/2.6.3-mm2/
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>URL is of course,
>>ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.3/2.6.3-mm3/
>>
>
>Yes, thanks.
>
>
>>This still doesn't shrink slab correctly on highmem machines
>>because you dropped my patch :(
>>
>
>First, one needs to define "correctly".
>
>Certainly, it is not "solves the alleged updatedb problem".
>
>The design behind the slab shrinking is to reclaim slab in response to
>memory demand. Not in response to lowmem demand. With all the scaling,
>accounting-for-seeks-and-locality, etc.
>
>

That is the wrong design. That is basically just circumventing
zone balancing, and it shows because you don't balance slab vs
lowmem properly.

Lowmem pagecache vs highmem pagecache should be balanced correctly?
I think it is with your other patches.

Lowmem pagecache vs slab should be balanced correctly with my patch.

Therefore highmem vs slab will be balanced correctly.

Is that a good proof?