From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Subject: Re: RFC: Remove swap file support References: <3B472C06.78A9530C@mandrakesoft.com> <20010715032528.E6722@weta.f00f.org> From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) Date: 14 Jul 2001 11:35:52 -0600 In-Reply-To: <20010715032528.E6722@weta.f00f.org> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Chris Wedgwood Cc: Jeff Garzik , Linux Kernel Mailing List , viro@math.psu.edu, linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: Chris Wedgwood writes: > On Sat, Jul 14, 2001 at 12:07:38AM -0600, Eric W. Biederman wrote: > > Yes, and no. I'd say what we need to do is update rw_swap_page to > use the address space functions directly. With block devices and > files going through the page cache in 2.5 that should remove any > special cases cleanly. > > Will block devices go through the page cache in 2.5.x? > > I had hoped they would, that any block devices would just be > page-cache views of underlying character devices, thus allowing us to > remove the buffer-cache and the /dev/raw stuff. Block devices will go through the page cache in 2.5. It will take a while for the buffer cache to go away completely, but it is there for the code paths that haven't been updated. Buffer heads will stay. The /dev/raw stuff is for those users that don't want to the kernel to cache their data and will continue to exist in some form. I can't see how any device that doesn't support read or writing just a byte can be a character device. Eric -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/