linux-kernel - Re: [ck] Re: -mm merge plans for 2.6.23

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Message-ID: <46A72EC9.4030706@yahoo.com.au>
Date:	Wed, 25 Jul 2007 21:06:49 +1000
From:	Nick Piggin <nickpiggin@...oo.com.au>
To:	Jos Poortvliet <jos@...nkamer.nl>
CC:	Rene Herman <rene.herman@...il.com>, Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>,
	david@...g.hm, Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu,
	Ray Lee <ray-lk@...rabbit.org>,
	Jesper Juhl <jesper.juhl@...il.com>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, ck list <ck@....kolivas.org>,
	linux-mm@...ck.org, Paul Jackson <pj@....com>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [ck] Re: -mm merge plans for 2.6.23

Jos Poortvliet wrote:

> Nick
> has been talking about 'fixing the updatedb thing' for years now, no patch
> yet.

Wrong Nick, I think.

First I heard about the updatedb problem was a few months ago with people
saying updatedb was causing their system to swap (that is, swap prefetching
helped after updatedb). I haven't been able to even try to fix it because I
can't reproduce it (I'm sitting on a machine with 256MB RAM), and nobody
has wanted to help me.


> Besides, he won't fix OO.o nor all other userspace stuff - so 
> actually,
> he does NOT even promise an alternative. Not that I think fixing updatedb
> would be cool, btw - it sure would, but it's no reason not to include swap
> prefetch - it's mostly unrelated.
> 
> I think everyone with >1 gb ram should stop saying 'I don't need it' 
> because
> that's obvious for that hardware. Just like ppl having a dual- or quadcore
> shouldn't even talk about scheduler interactivity stuff...

Actually there are people with >1GB of ram who are saying it helps. Why do
you want to shut people out of the discussion?


> Desktop users want it, tests show it works, there is no alternative and the
> maybe-promised-one won't even fix all cornercases. It's small, mostly
> selfcontained. There is a maintainer. It's been stable for a long time. 
> It's
> been in MM for a long time.
> 
> Yet it doesn't make it. Andrew says 'some ppl have objections' (he means
> Nick) and he doesn't see an advantage in it (at least 4 gig ram, right,
> Andrew?).
> 
> Do I miss things?

You could try constructively contributing?


> Apparently, it didn't get in yet - and I find it hard to believe Andrew
> holds swapprefetch for reasons like the above. So it must be something 
> else.
> 
> 
> Nick is saying tests have already proven swap prefetch to be helpfull,
> that's not the problem. He calls the requirements to get in 'fuzzy'. OK.

The test I have seen is the one that forces a huge amount of memory to
swap out, waits, then touches it. That speeds up, and that's fine. That's
a good sanity test to ensure it is working. Beyond that there are other
considerations to getting something merged.

-- 
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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