Re: An idea for prefetching swapped memory...

Chris Friesen (cfriesen@nortelnetworks.com)
Mon, 07 Apr 2003 10:19:25 -0400


Helge Hafting wrote:
> Thomas Schlichter wrote:
>
>> What I wanted to say is that if there is free memory it should be
>> filled with
>> the pages that were in use before the memory got rare. And these are
>> the pages
>> swapped out last.

> "What we're going to need soon" is the best. It isn't always predictable,
> but sometimes. "The block following the last we read from some
> file/fs-structure"
> is often a good one though.

With the current setup though, the memory is wasted. It makes sense that we
should fill the memory up with *something* that is likely to be useful.

If I have mozilla open, start a kernel compile, and then come back half an hour
later, I would like to see the mozilla pages speculatively loaded back into memory.

Since the system is otherwise idle, it doesn't cost anything to do this. I
think its obvious that it is beneficial to swap in something, the only trick is
getting a decent heuristic as to what it should be.

Chris

-- 
Chris Friesen                    | MailStop: 043/33/F10
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