Re: 2.1.97 mm and cache

Benjamin Redelings I (bredelin@ucsd.edu)
Mon, 20 Apr 1998 11:15:42 -0700 (PDT)

I agree with Andrea. I'm no expert on the subject, so this may be more
difficult than it appears, but I think that the kernel should be much more
intelligent about the relative merits of cacheing versus swapping. At
some point (which I reach every day, because I have "only" 64Mb) it is
better to decrease the cache size instead of swapping things out!
The whole point of the cache is to decrease disk-reads....the
current implementation does not take into account the fact that swapping
implies disk reads! I suspect that this problem is only exposed to the
light of day because the pte-chaining/defragmentation stuff isn't in the
kernel yet. But it is STILL a problem! Is there a reason why we should
not implement at least a default mechanism for figuring out when it is
better to uncache or to swap? That default mechanism could then be
improved with time.

Thanks,
-BenRI

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