Re: [PATCH] lazy freeing of memory through MADV_FREE

Rik van Riel
2007-04-21T18:07:52Z

Hugh Dickins wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2007, Rik van Riel wrote:
>> Andrew Morton wrote:
>>
>>> I do go on about that. But we're adding page flags at about one per
>>> year, and when we run out we're screwed - we'll need to grow the
>>> pageframe.
>> If you want, I can take a look at folding this into the
>> ->mapping pointer. I can guarantee you it won't be
>> pretty, though :)
>
> Please don't. If we're going to stuff another pageflag into there,
> let it be PageSwapCache the natural partner of PageAnon, rather than
> whatever our latest pageflag happens to be.

I looked at doing what Andrew wanted, and it did indeed not
look like the right thing to do. The locking on page->mapping
is the kind of locking we want to avoid during zap_page_range
and in the pageout code.

I like your suggestion better.

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