linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] mm: remove unused alloc_pages_bulk

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Date:   Thu, 1 Jun 2023 22:44:47 +0100
From:   Lorenzo Stoakes <lstoakes@...il.com>
To:     Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net>
Cc:     Yang Shi <shy828301@...il.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>, linux-mm@...ck.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrey Konovalov <andreyknvl@...il.com>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>, Marco Elver <elver@...gle.com>,
        Michal Hocko <mhocko@...e.com>,
        David Howells <dhowells@...hat.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] mm: remove unused alloc_pages_bulk_list()

On Thu, Jun 01, 2023 at 10:10:02AM +0100, Mel Gorman wrote:
> On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 02:29:01PM -0700, Yang Shi wrote:
> > On Wed, May 31, 2023 at 8:24???AM Lorenzo Stoakes <lstoakes@...il.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Mon, 19 Dec 2022 at 10:07, Mel Gorman <mgorman@...hsingularity.net> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Sat, Dec 17, 2022 at 08:34:58AM +0000, Lorenzo Stoakes wrote:
> > > > I reckon we should give it another few months until May. There has been
> > > > one user recently that tried to use list but it turned out arrays were
> > > > more appropriate.
> > > >
> > >
> > > It being May 31st, it feels appropriate to chase this up :)
> > >
> > > David's series at [0] did initially use this function, before
> > > switching to the _array() variant. Other than that it seems that it
> > > remains unused.
> >
> > Thanks for following this up. My patchset (use bulk allocator for
> > dm-crypt) also switched from list API to a new callback API suggested
> > by Mel. But I haven't heard anything back from Mel about it yet. I
> > forgot to follow up due to too many distractions.
> >
>
> It needs a follow-up. My various inboxes that I get cc'd on currently exceed
> 1000 mails due to being offline a lot during the last few months so there
> could be a lot hiding in there. Conceptually at least I don't recall having
> any problem with the callback patches as long as the dm-crypt people are
> happy. I vaguely recall a review disappeared off into the weeds talking
> about maybe using physically contiguous pages (missing the point of using
> the bulk allocator at all and ignoring fragmentation concerns affecting
> allocation success rates) but I'm not certain.

Entirely understandable re: this (rather trivial) removal, and obviously
this is far from high priority so no rush.

However, if you feel Yang's series ought to use a different interface and
given no other users of alloc_pages_bulk_list() have emerged, I am happy to
go ahead and respin the patch. If you want to wait absolutely no problem
either! :)

Cheers, Lorenzo

>
> --
> Mel Gorman
> SUSE Labs