Re: [PATCH] Use extents for recording what swap is allocated.

[Nigel Cunningham <ncunningham@linuxmail.org>]

Hi.

On Mon, 2006-10-23 at 17:32 +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > Switch from bitmaps to using extents to record what swap is allocated;
> > they make more efficient use of memory, particularly where the allocated
> > storage is small and the swap space is large.
> 
> > This is also part of the ground work for implementing support for
> > supporting multiple swap devices.
> 
> bitmaps were more efficient and longer than original code... I did not
> _like_ them, but they are in now. I'd hate to change the code again,
> for what, 0.5% gain?

0.5% of what? This is part of what is needed to implement support for
multiple swap devices. You could extend what you already have,
implementing bitmaps that require a bit for every page of swap the user
has swapon'd, but that doesn't seem efficient to me.

> ...and this is still longer than bitmaps.
> 
> And SNAPSHOT_GET_SWAP_PAGE seems to support multiple swap spaces
> already.

It may do, but swap.c certainly doesn't. It supports exactly one device.

Regards,

Nigel