Re: [RFC] Simple Slab: A slab allocator with minimal meta information

[Matt Mackall <mpm@selenic.com>]

On Wed, Aug 09, 2006 at 05:52:00PM -0700, Christoph Lameter wrote:
> This is by no means complete and probably full of bugs. Feedback and help 
> wanted! I have tried to switch over two minor system caches (memory 
> policies) to use simple slab and it seems to work. We probably have some 
> way to go before we could do performance tests.

There's probably enough here to shim in a regular slab and kmalloc
interface layer to run a desktop machine.
 
> The Simple Slab is not NUMA capable at this point and I think the
> NUMAness may better be implemented in a different way. Maybe we
> could understand the Simple Slab as a lower layer and then add all
> the bells and whistles including NUMAness, proc API, kmalloc caches
> etc. on top as a management layer for this lower level
> functionality.

I think a layered approach to handling NUMA and the like makes an
awful lot of sense here. And probably greatly simplifies locking, etc.

Also, I like that you've gone to off-slab accounting. Not only does
this simplify things overall, it's good for memory footprint and
possibly better on cache footprint.

It's gonna need a better name though..

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.