linux-kernel - Re: [RFC PATCH] greatly reduce SLOB external fragmentation

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Date:	Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:09:43 -0500
From:	Matt Mackall <mpm@...enic.com>
To:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:	Pekka J Enberg <penberg@...helsinki.fi>,
	Christoph Lameter <clameter@....com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...e.hu>, Hugh Dickins <hugh@...itas.com>,
	Andi Kleen <andi@...stfloor.org>,
	Peter Zijlstra <a.p.zijlstra@...llo.nl>,
	Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	vegard.nossum@...il.com, hannes@...urebad.de
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH] greatly reduce SLOB external fragmentation

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 15:00 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Pekka J Enberg wrote:
> > 
> > Subject: [PATCH] binalloc: best-fit allocation with binning
> > From: Pekka Enberg <penberg@...helsinki.fi>
> 
> Shoot me now. 
> 
> > As suggested by Linus,
> 
> I'm happy to hear that the thing worked, but I'm not sure how happy I 
> should be about yet _another_ allocator. Will it ever end?

I think you can relax: the logical limit is probably two. We want an
allocator that is both optimally fast and scalable on one end and
optimally space-efficient on the other end and we're unlikely to find
one allocator that is simultaneously both. But I don't think there's
much call for things in the middle of the spectrum.

So if this new one (which I haven't looked at yet) beats SLOB in space
usage and simplicity, I'll be happy to see it replace SLOB.

Finally getting rid of SLAB is a much trickier proposition because SLUB
still loses in a few important corner cases.

-- 
Mathematics is the supreme nostalgia of our time.

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