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From: Daniel Phillips <phillips@bonn-fries.net>
To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, vda@port.imtp.ilyichevsk.odessa.ua
Subject: Re: swapping,any updates ?? Just wasted money on mem upgrade performance still suck :-(
Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 17:38:33 +0100
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Cc: cej@ti.com (christian e), riel@conectiva.com.br (Rik van Riel),
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        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (linux kernel)
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On January 7, 2002 05:06 pm, Alan Cox wrote:
> > knobs. It just won't happen. Fixing VM behavior is the only way. It has 
> > to work satisfactorily _without_ tuning.
> 
> Thats something you will never achieve. Virtual memory is about heuristics,
> crystal ball gazing and guesswork. There are always some workloads where you
> want little caching and some where you want lots of caching - such as a 
> fileserver.

You can get close though.  The fact that we aren't close is no proof of 
impossibility.  If we do give up and decide to ship only 'manual 
transmissions', we can be quite sure we'll never get there.

> You can make it right for most people but the last few percent you
> will always get by tuning knobs - either directly or via GUI tools like
> powertweak

Except, as you and others have pointed out, we are far from knowing what the 
knobs should be.

--
Daniel
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