Re: [highmem bug report against -test5 and -test6] Re: [PATCH] Re:simple FS application that hangs 2.4-test5, mem mgmt problem or FS buffercache mgmt problem? (fwd)

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>]

On Mon, 2 Oct 2000, Andrea Arcangeli wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 04:35:43PM -0300, Rik van Riel wrote:
> > because we keep the buffer heads on active pages in memory...
> 
> A page can be the most active and the VM and never need bh on it after the
> first pagein. Keeping the bh on it means wasting tons of memory for no good
> reason.

I agree. Most of the time, there's absolutely no point in keeping the
buffer heads around. Most pages (and _especially_ the actively mapped
ones) do not need the buffer heads at all after creation - once they are
uptodate they stay uptodate and we're only interested in the page, not the
buffers used to create it.

		Linus

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