The disadvantage of that is that all the kernel parts using __get_fee_page()
[especially select() comes to mind which uses 2 pages per waiting process]
would waste an awful lot of memory.
> However, I'd prefer to still try out some other ways of handling this. For
> example, "__get_free_pages()" currently only re-tries once. It shouldn't
> be hard to make it re-try a few more times, and it might well be enough to
> make the problem go away.
Or it might not. This is just "randomly throwing pages away, maybe we have
luck". Does not look like a good reliable strategy.
> 2.1.x is not going to be usable on 4MB machines. I didn't even have to
> change the kernel for that - the distributions have made that abundantly
> clear anyway. It may be that we will simply say that "hey, if you have a
> 486-8MB, then 2.0.x works better, and the new features of 2.1.x aren't
> worth it for you".
This is correct (I said 8MB :), but I would be worried if it was not usable
on a 16MB machine.
>
> One of the reasons I disliked Minix back when I used it was that it was
> designed for a machine that was no longer current. I want new versions of
> Linux to be optimized for new hardware, and I also think that it should be
> acceptable to
But that's no excuse to waste memory except for very good reasons. The 5%
rule applies (5% here, 5% there, the result is something as bloated as
Solaris or NT)
-Andi
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