Re: try_to_swap_out() return value problem?

[Rik van Riel]

On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Thu, 4 Jan 2001, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:

> I agree that the return value of swap_out() is fairly meaningless. It's
> been fairly meaningless for a long time now, and it's entirely possible
> that the "while (swap_out())" loop should be just something like
> 
> 	/* Scan the VM space, try to clean up the page tables a bit */
> 	for (i = 0 ; i <= nr_threads >> priority; i++)
> 		swap_out(gfp_mask);

The problem with this is that it means that page aging of
the mapped active pages is no longer balanced against the
aging of the unmapped active pages.

Though I guess this is not an issue in practice since the
downward aging for all active pages is done in
refill_inactive_scan() anyway and only the mapped pages
which aren't on any list have the potential to be balanced
badly.

regards,

Rik
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