Re: [RFC][PATCH] Re: Linux 2.4.4-ac10

[Rik van Riel]

On Sun, 20 May 2001, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> On Sat, 19 May 2001, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > On Sat, 19 May 2001, Mike Galbraith wrote:
> > > On Fri, 18 May 2001, Stephen C. Tweedie wrote:
> > >
> > > > That's the main problem with static parameters.  The problem you are
> > > > trying to solve is fundamentally dynamic in most cases (which is also
> > > > why magic numbers tend to suck in the VM.)
> > >
> > > Magic numbers might be sucking some performance right now ;-)
> >
> > ... so you replace them with some others ... ;)
>
> I reused one of our base numbers to classify the severity of the
> situation.. not the same as inventing new ones.  (well, not quite
> the same anyway.. half did come from the south fourty;)

*nod* ;)

(not that I'm saying this is bad ... it's just that I'd
like to know why things work before looking at applying
them)

> > > (yes, the last hunk looks out of place wrt my text.
> >
> > It also looks kind of bogus and geared completely towards this
> > particular workload ;)
>
> I'm not sure why that helps.  I didn't put it in as a trick or
> anything though.  I put it in because it didn't seem like a
> good idea to ever have more cleaned pages than free pages at a
> time when we're yammering for help.. so I did that and it helped.
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Note that this is not the normal situation. Now think
about the amount of data you'd be blowing away from the
inactive_clean pages after a bit of background aging
has gone on on a lightly loaded system.  Not Good(tm)

regards,

Rik
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