Re: 2.4.19pre1aa1

[Mike Fedyk <mfedyk@matchmail.com>]

On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 10:26:48PM -0500, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> experience), so blessing one and making the other "only a patch" troubles
> me somewhat. I hate to say "compete" as VM solution, but they both solve
> the same problem with more success in one field or another.
> 
> If either is adopted the pressure will be off to improve in the areas
> where one or the other is weak, Once the decision is made that won't
> happen,

I sincerely doubt that Rik will slow down at all when parts of -aa are in
the mainline kernel.  There is 2.5 to work award, and 2.4 isn't a lost
cause... 

Also, one has already been blessed, way back in 2.4.10-pre11 by Linus.  I
don't see any chance of rmap getting into 2.4 before 2.4.27+  Marcelo has
said he wants to see rmap in production on in -ac for a while before he
thinks about merging rmap, and that's good IMHO.

>And if rmap is a large VM change, what then is Ardrea's code?
> Large isn't just the size of the patch, it is to some extent the size of
> the behavior change.
> 

True, and by that token, rmap would be the larger change in behavior (not
swapping on disk accesses, etc ;).

> For me it makes little difference, I like to play with kernels, and I'm
> hoping for the source which needs only numbers in /proc/sys to tune,
> rather than patches. But there are a lot more small machines (which I feel
> are better served by rmap) than large. I would like to leave the jury out
> a little longer on this.
> 

Look at it another way, by forcing Andrea to send it
in as small chunks with descriptions, we may finally get a documented -aa
VM. ;)  So, lets watch and see that happen.

I don't see anyone benefiting with *both* of the VM enhancements as external
patches.

> I was looking for opinions, thak you for sharing yours.!
>

You will certainly find that here. ;)