From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750944AbWFUEK6 (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:10:58 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750966AbWFUEK6 (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:10:58 -0400 Received: from rtr.ca ([64.26.128.89]:11243 "EHLO mail.rtr.ca") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750938AbWFUEK5 (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:10:57 -0400 Message-ID: <4498C6CF.3080206@rtr.ca> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 00:10:55 -0400 From: Mark Lord User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 (X11/20060516) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Andrew Morton Cc: js@linuxtv.org, pavel@ucw.cz, p.lundkvist@telia.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rjw@sisk.pl Subject: Re: [PATCH] Page writeback broken after resume: wb_timer lost References: <20060520130326.GA6092@localhost> <20060520103728.6f3b3798.akpm@osdl.org> <20060520225018.GC8490@elf.ucw.cz> <20060520171244.4399bc54.akpm@osdl.org> <20060616212410.GA6821@linuxtv.org> <4496C5AC.3030809@rtr.ca> <4498BF51.5090204@rtr.ca> <20060620205415.d808ace9.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <20060620205415.d808ace9.akpm@osdl.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Andrew Morton wrote: > On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 23:38:57 -0400 > Mark Lord wrote: > >>> I just gave it a try here. With or without a suspend/resume cycle after >>> boot, >>> the "sync" time is much quicker. But the Dirty count in /proc/meminfo >>> still shows very huge (eg. 600MB) values that never really get smaller >>> until I type "sync". But that subsequent "sync" only takes a couple >>> of seconds now, rather than 10-20 seconds like before. >> .. >> >> Yup, behaviour is *definitely* much better now. I'm not sure why >> the /proc/meminfo "Dirty" count lags behind reality, but the disk >> is being kept much more up-to-date than without this patch. > > Are you able to come up with a foolproof set of steps which would allow the > laggy-dirtiness to be reproduced by yours truly? Heh.. don't I wish! The best is still as described originally: http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/2/6/170 Basically, "cat" a ton of huge files together into a single new one, and then watch /proc/meminfo to see what happens. For me, the count there still just hangs at some big number like 500MB until I type "sync", at which point it (nearly) instantly now goes to zero. Previous to this patch, the "sync" actually resulted in a ton of disk writes, but now those happen on the tail end of the "cat" command, as they should. My kernel .config is available from http://rtr.ca/dell_i9300/kernel/latest/ Cheers