> No. The entire kernel, and all of its data structures, are resident in
> memory all of the time.
In the current Linux kernel, that is.
> Kernel demand paging is not possible,
It is certainly possible (you could mark areas that don't contain currently
used stuff for pageout). It is extremely hairy to do right (just see the
mess with module loading/unloading, which is some of the same stuff, very
tamed).
> not
> necessary and not implemented.
The cost of doing it right in a monolitic kernel would probably outweigh
the gains manyfold, and require massive redesign for Linux. In microkernels
it is a lot easier to do (but their performance sucks baby elephants
through straws, so they are moot :-)
-- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/