Re: inode_cache / dentry_cache not being reclaimed aggressively enough on low-memory PCs

[Mike Fedyk <mfedyk@matchmail.com>]

On Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 07:05:43PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Alex Buell <alex.buell@munted.org.uk> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, 3 Jan 2004, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > 
> > > John Lash <jlash@speakeasy.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > As it stands, it will maintain as many unused entries as there are used entries.
> > > >  If this low memory system las a large, stable, number of inuse dentry objects,
> > > >  the unused entries will match it thereby holding double the memory and possibly
> > > >  causing the problem you see.
> > > 
> > > Yup.   There is a fix in 2.6.1-rc1 for this.
> > 
> > Which change would that be? It would be nice to back-port that to 2.4.x if 
> > that's possible?
> 
> It is not backportable.
> 
> You could try increasing `count' in shrink_dcache_memory() and
> shrink_icache_memory().  Also you should be using 2.4.23 or later because
> it does have improvements in the memory reclaim area.

Also, if there are any improvements considered for the 2.4 VM, it should be
on top of the -aa series.  That's where the latest updates are, and it
doesn't make sence to work from a base that already has seperate
improvements available.