VM a serious issue for 2.2? (was Re: Strange interrupt behaviour)

Russell Leighton (leighton@mail.imake.com)
Sun, 12 Jul 1998 22:21:50 -0400

Alan Cox wrote:
> 2.1.10x isnt usable on a server with 16Mb. It eventually fragments
> itself to death normally death by dcache fragmentation of main
> memory. I suspect a 32Mb box will simply last longer rather than
> survive indefinitely.
>
> I'm rebooting 32Mb SMP machines running 2.1.106/2.1.108 every 48
> hours to get my compile performance back from 2/3rds of boot
> time.
>
> I don't think VM fixing by the ostrich technique is remotely realistic
> for 2.2 even if Linus does.
>
> Alan

So ... for us lurking non-kernel types...

Is it fair to say 2.2 will be a version
of Linux that will slowly frag to death,
if there is not a serious rework of the VM management?

THIS, just at the time when MS is stumbling and
all eyes in the industry are on Linux...

THAT SAID, what makes Linux great is that
it is NOT slave to politcal/biz pressures...

And THAT SAID, why lose face when the "schedule"
can be slipped? Just move a few features from
the next dev release down to this one and let
this one slip...is there really much to
be lost by doing this?

Linux has a reputation for quality, it would
be sad to be lumped in with the rest of
the "we'll fix that in the next release" crowd.

Russ

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Russell Leighton   leighton@imake.com   http://www.imake.com
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