linux-kernel - [PATCH] Documentation/driver-api/cxl: remove page-allocator quirk section

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Message-ID: <20251003143233.1985150-1-gourry@gourry.net>
Date: Fri,  3 Oct 2025 10:32:32 -0400
From: Gregory Price <gourry@...rry.net>
To: linux-cxl@...r.kernel.org
Cc: dave@...olabs.net,
	jonathan.cameron@...wei.com,
	dave.jiang@...el.com,
	alison.schofield@...el.com,
	vishal.l.verma@...el.com,
	ira.weiny@...el.com,
	dan.j.williams@...el.com,
	corbet@....net,
	gourry@...rry.net,
	linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH] Documentation/driver-api/cxl: remove page-allocator quirk section

The node/zone quirk section of the cxl documentation is incorrect.
The actual reason for fallback allocation misbehavior in the
described configuration is due to a kswapd/reclaim thrashing scenario
fixed by the linked patch.  Remove this section.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mm/20250919162134.1098208-1-hannes@cmpxchg.org/
Signed-off-by: Gregory Price <gourry@...rry.net>
---
 .../cxl/allocation/page-allocator.rst         | 31 -------------------
 1 file changed, 31 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/driver-api/cxl/allocation/page-allocator.rst b/Documentation/driver-api/cxl/allocation/page-allocator.rst
index 7b8fe1b8d5bb..3fa584a248bd 100644
--- a/Documentation/driver-api/cxl/allocation/page-allocator.rst
+++ b/Documentation/driver-api/cxl/allocation/page-allocator.rst
@@ -41,37 +41,6 @@ To simplify this, the page allocator will prefer :code:`ZONE_MOVABLE` over
 will fallback to allocate from :code:`ZONE_NORMAL`.
 
 
-Zone and Node Quirks
-====================
-Let's consider a configuration where the local DRAM capacity is largely onlined
-into :code:`ZONE_NORMAL`, with no :code:`ZONE_MOVABLE` capacity present. The
-CXL capacity has the opposite configuration - all onlined in
-:code:`ZONE_MOVABLE`.
-
-Under the default allocation policy, the page allocator will completely skip
-:code:`ZONE_MOVABLE` as a valid allocation target.  This is because, as of
-Linux v6.15, the page allocator does (approximately) the following: ::
-
-  for (each zone in local_node):
-
-    for (each node in fallback_order):
-
-      attempt_allocation(gfp_flags);
-
-Because the local node does not have :code:`ZONE_MOVABLE`, the CXL node is
-functionally unreachable for direct allocation.  As a result, the only way
-for CXL capacity to be used is via `demotion` in the reclaim path.
-
-This configuration also means that if the DRAM ndoe has :code:`ZONE_MOVABLE`
-capacity - when that capacity is depleted, the page allocator will actually
-prefer CXL :code:`ZONE_MOVABLE` pages over DRAM :code:`ZONE_NORMAL` pages.
-
-We may wish to invert this priority in future Linux versions.
-
-If `demotion` and `swap` are disabled, Linux will begin to cause OOM crashes
-when the DRAM nodes are depleted. See the reclaim section for more details.
-
-
 CGroups and CPUSets
 ===================
 Finally, assuming CXL memory is reachable via the page allocation (i.e. onlined
-- 
2.51.0