Re: Linux-2.4.5

Linus Torvalds
2001-05-26T23:24:26Z

On Sat, 26 May 2001, Rik van Riel wrote:
>
> I am smoking the "tested the patch and wasn't able to reproduce
> a deadlock" stuff.

I'd be happier if _anybody_ was smoking the "thought about the problem
some more" stuff as well.

I can easily imagine that this part of your patch

if (gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT) {
memory_pressure++;
- try_to_free_pages(gfp_mask);
- goto try_again;
+ if (!order || free_shortage()) {
+ int progress = try_to_free_pages(gfp_mask);
+ if (progress || gfp_mask & __GFP_IO)
+ goto try_again;
+ }
}

is fine. The fact that other parts of your patch were NOT fine should make
you go "Hmm, maybe Linus dismissed it for a reason" instead.

Testing is good. But I want to understand how we get into the situation in
the first place, and whether there are ways to alleviate those problems
too.

Testing and finding that the bug went away under your workload is
good. But thinking that that should stop discussion about the _proper_ fix
is stupid, Rik.

Linus