differences between MADV_FREE and MADV_DONTNEED

[Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>]

Now that MADV_REMOVE is in, should we discuss MADV_FREE?

MADV_FREE in Solaris is destructive and only works on anonymous memory,
while MADV_DONTNEED seems to never be destructive (which I assume it
means it's a noop on anonymous memory).

Our MADV_DONTNEED is destructive on anonymous memory, while it's
non-destructive on file mappings.

Perhaps we could move the destructive anonymous part of MADV_DONTNEED to
MADV_FREE?

Or we could as well go relaxed and define MADV_FREE and MADV_DONTNEED
the same way (that still leaves the question if we risk to break apps
ported from solaris where MADV_DONTNEED is apparently always not
destructive).

I only read the docs, I don't know in practice what MADV_DONTNEED does
on solaris (does it return -EINVAL if run on anonymous memory or not?).

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-5168/6mbb3hrgk?a=view

BTW, I don't know how other specifications define MADV_FREE, but besides
MADV_REMOVE I've also got the request to provide MADV_FREE in linux,
this is why I'm asking. (right now I'm telling them to use #ifdef
__linux__ #define MADV_FREE MADV_DONTNEED but that's quite an hack since
it could break if we make MADV_DONTNEED non-destructive in the future)

Thanks.