linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] Memory folios for v5.15

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Date:   Tue, 24 Aug 2021 03:20:48 +0100
From:   Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Linux-MM <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Memory folios for v5.15

On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 03:06:08PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 2:25 PM Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org> wrote:
> >
> > One one hand, the ambition appears to substitute folio for everything
> > that could be a base page or a compound page even inside core MM
> > code. Since there are very few places in the MM code that expressly
> > deal with tail pages in the first place, this amounts to a conversion
> > of most MM code - including the LRU management, reclaim, rmap,
> > migrate, swap, page fault code etc. - away from "the page".
> 
> Yeah, honestly, I would have preferred to see this done the exact
> reverse way: make the rule be that "struct page" is always a head
> page, and anything that isn't a head page would be called something
> else.
> 
> Because, as you say, head pages are the norm. And "folio" may be a
> clever term, but it's not very natural. Certainly not at all as
> intuitive or common as "page" as a name in the industry.
> 
> That said, I see why Willy did it the way he did - it was easier to do
> it incrementally the way he did. But I do think it ends up with an end
> result that is kind of topsy turvy where the common "this is the core
> allocation" being called that odd "folio" thing, and then the simpler
> "page" name is for things that almost nobody should even care about.
> 
> I'd have personally preferred to call the head page just a "page", and
> other pages "subpage" or something like that. I think that would be
> much more intuitive than "folio/page".

I'm trying to figure out how we can get there.

To start, define

struct mmu_page {
	union {
		struct page;
		struct {
			unsigned long flags;
			unsigned long compound_head;
			unsigned char compound_dtor;
			unsigned char compound_order;
			atomic_t compound_mapcount;
			unsigned int compound_nr;
		};
	};
};

Now memmap becomes an array of struct mmu_pages instead of struct pages.

We also need to sort out the type returned from the page cache APIs.
Right now, it returns (effectively) the mmu_page.  I think it _should_
return the (arbitrary order) struct page, but auditing every caller of
every function is an inhuman job.

I can't see how to get there from here without a ridiculous number
of bugs.  Maybe you can.