Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267495AbUIGBfT (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Sep 2004 21:35:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267497AbUIGBfT (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Sep 2004 21:35:19 -0400 Received: from mail11.syd.optusnet.com.au ([211.29.132.192]:25532 "EHLO mail11.syd.optusnet.com.au") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S267495AbUIGBfI (ORCPT ); Mon, 6 Sep 2004 21:35:08 -0400 References: <413CB661.6030303@sgi.com> <20040906162740.54a5d6c9.akpm@osdl.org> <20040907000304.GA8083@logos.cnet> Message-ID: X-Mailer: http://www.courier-mta.org/cone/ From: Con Kolivas To: Marcelo Tosatti Cc: Andrew Morton , raybry@sgi.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, riel@redhat.com, piggin@cyberone.com.au, mbligh@aracnet.com Subject: Re: swapping and the value of /proc/sys/vm/swappiness Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 11:34:15 +1000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2260 Lines: 54 Marcelo Tosatti writes: > On Tue, Sep 07, 2004 at 09:34:20AM +1000, Con Kolivas wrote: >> Andrew Morton writes: >> >> >Con Kolivas wrote: >> >> >> >>> A scan of the change logs for swappiness related changes shows nothing >> >>that > might explain these changes. My question is: "Is this change in >> >> behavior >> >> > deliberate, or just a side effect of other changes that were made in >> >> the vm?" > and "What kind of swappiness behavior might I expect to find >> >> in future kernels?". >> >> >> >> The change was not deliberate but there have been some other people >> >> report significant changes in the swappiness behaviour as well (see >> >> archives). It has usually been of the increased swapping variety lately. >> >> It has been annoying enough to the bleeding edge desktop users for a >> >> swag of out-of-tree hacks to start appearing (like mine). >> > >> >All of which is largely wasted effort. It would be much more useful to get >> >down and identify which patch actually caused the behavioural change. >> >> I don't disagree. Is there anyone who has the time and is willing to do the >> regression testing? This is a general appeal to the mailing list. > > Hi kernel fellows, > > I volunteer. I'll try something tomorrow to compare swappiness of older kernels like > 2.6.5 and 2.6.6, which were fine on SGI's Altix tests, up to current newer kernels > (on small memory boxes of course). > > Someone needs to write a vmstat-like tool to parse /proc/vmstat. > The statistics in there allows us to watch the behaviour of VM > page reclaim code. > > Con, if you could compile a list of reports we would be very grateful. Apart from lots of "soft" reports I've been getting, the most obvious one recently on the mailing list is this: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=109237941331221&w=2 and no, I'm not referring to this thread because he tried one of my patches; that's an old patch that I'm not even pushing any more. Cheers, Con - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/