I think what was meant here was the memory footprint of a running program
and not just the execulable size. All running processes have swappable
segments that often exceed the text segment.
Also "text" pages that are simply discarded on a page out, to be read back
in from the a.out later, would gain by being compressed and put in memory.
> 2) The current swap-code is efficient because it uses a _fixed_ granularity
> (eg one page, 4k or 8k). Disks like this. Unless you are using a
> fixed-to-fixed block-encoding algorithm, compression loses this property.
I dont see this as a difficult issue. Based on worst case compression
ratio, we could say "2 pages = 1 page" or such like.
> 3) For swapping over the network: A compressed network-protocol would gain
> MUCH more, not only swapping but for normal traffic also.
> 4) In your timings, you assume there is one physical disk. If there are
> more, Linux spreads the load amoung them and is able to achieve much
> higher bandwidths.
> 5) Reserving a fixed piece of memory loses the flexibility the current
> kernel has in splitting the "spare" memory amoung cache/data/programs
> in an optimal way
This is what it does exactly. Smart management of RAM. You mention
cache... and this is just another form of cahe. Cache the pages you know
you are going to need soon when the process becomes active again.
prasun
>
> Greetings,
> Arjan van de Ven
>
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