> From a user perspective, it doesn't depend on swap. It's just slower > without swap because it does what MADV_DONTNEED does. The current > implementation can be dropped in where MADV_DONTNEED was previously used. It just wouldn't replace existing layers of purging logic until that edge case is fixed and it gains better THP integration. It's already a very useful API with significant performance wins over MADV_DONTNEED, so it will be useful. The only risk involved in landing it is that a better feature might come along. Worst case scenario being that the kernel ends up with a synonym for MADV_DONTNEED (but I think there will still be a use case for this even if a pinning/unpinning API existed, as this is more precise).
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