Re: [PATCH] lazy freeing of memory through MADV_FREE

[Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>]

Hugh Dickins wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Apr 2007, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > Andrew Morton wrote:
> >
> > >   I do go on about that.  But we're adding page flags at about one per
> > >   year, and when we run out we're screwed - we'll need to grow the
> > >   pageframe.
> > If you want, I can take a look at folding this into the
> > ->mapping pointer.  I can guarantee you it won't be
> > pretty, though :)
>
> Please don't.  If we're going to stuff another pageflag into there,
> let it be PageSwapCache the natural partner of PageAnon, rather than
> whatever our latest pageflag happens to be. 

I looked at doing what Andrew wanted, and it did indeed not
look like the right thing to do.  The locking on page->mapping
is the kind of locking we want to avoid during zap_page_range
and in the pageout code.

I like your suggestion better.

--
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