Re: Page cache patch - less aggressive

Dr. Werner Fink (werner@suse.de)
Tue, 1 Jul 1997 15:26:29 +0200


>
> Ummm, I have no idea why the old buffer cache code is being
> reintroduced in these patch sets. Linus has already made
> it perfectly clear that first priority is to get things working
> without reverting back to the old code, and that only if it
> is found to be impossible to make things work with the new
> code would reverting be even considered at all.
>

During testing the new buffer code I found that find_candidate()
called very often in refill_freelist() runs try_to_free_buffer()
... this seems to free the previous buffer pages allocated by
grow_buffers() in refill_freelist() and leads to heavy swap I/O
and cpu waste in less physical memory situations. Therefore I've
switched back to the old buffer code ... this is what I've written
a few days ago.

Does any body know a simple fix for find_candidate() in the
new buffer code to avoid this behaviour?

Werner