From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from max.fys.ruu.nl (max.fys.ruu.nl [131.211.32.73]) by kvack.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id XAA17671 for ; Thu, 21 May 1998 23:22:58 -0400 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 05:21:32 +0200 (MET DST) From: Rik van Riel Reply-To: Rik van Riel Subject: Re: Swapping in 2.1.103? In-Reply-To: <199805220256.TAA17716@mail.netwiz.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org To: Jim Wilcoxson Cc: linux-mm List-ID: [CC:d to linux-mm because of the TODO list and because Jim is generally suggesting to team up with us :) ] On Thu, 21 May 1998, Jim Wilcoxson wrote: > Hi Rik - I've been running Linux a few years now, but have only been on the > mailing list a few days and am not familiar with Linux internals. I think > it's a great OS though, and would love to contribute. I'd like to spend a > few days reviewing the current file system/paging algorithms and doing some > tests on my machine to make sure I understand before spouting off > suggestions. Is it reasonable to review to 2.0.33 code, or should I look > at the 2.1.x stuff? It depends. If you're mainly looking at the 'high-level' pageout daemon and the mmap() stuff, 2.0.33 will be fine. The low-level stuff (swapcache, locking, etc) have changed considerable, and are much more 'interesting' in 2.1.x... Also, the 2.1 kernel is more interesting because any changes you make have a larger probability of being saved for future generations :) We have several things in the TODO list currently: - reverse pte lookup -- being done by sct and blah - true swapping -- I have the designs next to me, NYI - out-of-memory process killing -- you can download the bulk of the code from my homepage - swapin clustering -- I have some random thoughts, but NYI - a zone allocator, instead of the current buddy allocator -- I have the design, but NYI - some minor kswapd fixes -- we know what to fix, just not how, and it's minor anyway... - prepaging -- I have some ideas on how to do this, no solid design and NYI In short, the Linux VM system is nice & fast, but far from perfect. I think there are still several man-years to be invested and we can always welcome a new person to the scene. There's also a mailing list: linux-mm@blah.kvack.org (majordomo@blah.kvack.org) Rik. +-------------------------------------------+--------------------------+ | Linux: - LinuxHQ MM-patches page | Scouting webmaster | | - kswapd ask-him & complain-to guy | Vries cubscout leader | | http://www.phys.uu.nl/~riel/ | | +-------------------------------------------+--------------------------+