From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:55:37 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:55:26 -0400 Received: from penguin.e-mind.com ([195.223.140.120]:7781 "EHLO penguin.e-mind.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 12 Oct 2001 18:55:17 -0400 Date: Sat, 13 Oct 2001 00:55:26 +0200 From: Andrea Arcangeli To: Ortiz Samuel Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: nr_local_pages and local_pages Message-ID: <20011013005526.G714@athlon.random> In-Reply-To: <20011012224527.14338.qmail@web12707.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20011012224527.14338.qmail@web12707.mail.yahoo.com>; from sambaufr@yahoo.fr on Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 12:45:27AM +0200 X-GnuPG-Key-URL: http://e-mind.com/~andrea/aa.gnupg.asc X-PGP-Key-URL: http://e-mind.com/~andrea/aa.asc Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Oct 13, 2001 at 12:45:27AM +0200, Ortiz Samuel wrote: > Hi Andrea ! > > > > > > > > I spent some time reading the balance_classzone code, > but there are still > > > some stuff I can't get. The main ones are the meaning > and use of the > > > following fields in the task structure : > > > > > - nr_local_pages > > > > - local_pages > > What are they for ? What do they mean ? we're balancing memory synchronously because we need to recycle some memory for ourself in order to succeed the allocation. Now if we succeed in freeing some page we keep this page for ourself while we free the next pages. So we work for ourself and not for somebody else. With the "goto rebalance" this isn't required anymore to avoid failing allocations, but still it should be good to provide better fariness, to avoid somebody stuck freeing memory hard, and all other tasks eating the free ram that such innocent task is producing in a starved loop. Andrea