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Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2002 10:59:23 -0800
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@zip.com.au>
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To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
CC: "M. Edward Borasky" <znmeb@aracnet.com>, Art Hays <art@lsr.nei.nih.gov>,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: kswapd etc hogging machine
In-Reply-To: <3C33E8EA.FAF8E337@zip.com.au> from "Andrew Morton" at Jan 02, 2002 09:15:22 PM <E16M72b-0008B8-00@the-village.bc.nu>
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Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> > But Art's kernel (what kernel is in RH7.2 anyway?  2.4.9 with vendor
> > hacks^Wfixes, I think) is nowhere near that stage.
> 
> 7.2 is 2.4.7-ac ish, 7.2 + errata is 2.4.9-ac ish

OK, thanks.

> > The good news is that 2.4.17 has pretty much slain this dragon.  The
> > -aa patches are better still, and 2.4.18 will be even better than
> > that.
> 
> Bollocks. I get regular mails from large numbers of people who are stuck
> at 2.4.12/13-ac and are hoping I'll do an update because their machines
> die in hours or run 25-50% slower with 2.4.1x.

I was referring to the swap and evict in the presence of heavy write
traffic.

> 2.4.1x VM code is performing better under light loads but its absolutely
> and completely hopeless under a real paging load. 2.4.17-aa is somewhat
> better interestingly.
> 

s/interestingly/frustratingly/.  -aa has some interesting changes to
the write scheduling as well.  I just wish I knew what problem they're
solving.

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