Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:49:02 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:48:51 -0500 Received: from fmfdns02.fm.intel.com ([132.233.247.11]:35043 "EHLO thalia.fm.intel.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 19 Nov 2001 19:48:41 -0500 Message-ID: From: "Yan, Noah" To: "'Linus Torvalds'" , Ken Brownfield Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrea Arcangeli Subject: RE: [VM] 2.4.14/15-pre4 too "swap-happy"? Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 08:48:15 +0800 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, all Just want to know is there any research/development work now on Linux kernel for IA-64, such as Intel Itanium? Best Regards, Noah Yan SC/Automation Group Shanghai Site Manufacturing Computing/IT Intel Technology (China) Ltd. IDD: (86 21) 50481818 - 31579 Fax: (86 21) 50481212 Email: noah.yan@intel.com -----Original Message----- From: Linus Torvalds [mailto:torvalds@transmeta.com] Sent: 2001?11?20? 8:31 To: Ken Brownfield Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org; Andrea Arcangeli Subject: Re: [VM] 2.4.14/15-pre4 too "swap-happy"? On Mon, 19 Nov 2001, Ken Brownfield wrote: > | > | So is this pre6aa1, or pre6 + just the watermark patch? > > I'm currently using -pre6 with his separately-posted zone-watermark-1 > patch. Sorry, I should have been clearer. Good. That removes the other variables from the equation, ie it's not an effect of some of the other tweaking in the -aa patches. > Yeah, maybe a tiered default would be best, IMHO. 5MB on a 3GB box > does, on the other hand, seem anemic. Yeah, the 5MB _is_ anemic. It comes from the fact that we decide to never bother having more than zone_balance_max[] pages free, even if we have tons of memory. And zone_balance_max[] is fairly small, it limits us to 255 free pages per zone (for page_min - wth "page_low" being twice that). So you get 3 zones, with 255*2 pages free max each, except the DMA zone has much less just because it's smaller. Thus 5MB. There's no real reason for having zone_balance_max[] at all - without it we'd just always try to keep about 1/128th of memory free, which would be about 24MB on a 3GB box. Which is probably not a bad idea. With my "simplified-Andrea" patch, you should see slightly more than 5MB free, but not a lot more. A HIGHMEM allocation now wants to leave an "extra" 510 pages in NORMAL, and even more in the DMA zone, so you should see something like maybe 12-15 MB free instead of 300MB. (Wild hand-waving number, I'm too lazy to actually do the math, and I haven't even tested that the simple patch works at all - I think I forgot to mention that small detail ;) Linus - 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/ - 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/