Re: [PATCH] mm/vmscan: add sysctl knobs for protecting the working set

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On 13.12.2021 11:38, Barry Song wrote:
On Tue, Dec 7, 2021 at 5:47 AM ValdikSS <iam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This patchset is surprisingly effective and very useful for low-end PC
with slow HDD, single-board ARM boards with slow storage, cheap Android
smartphones with limited amount of memory. It almost completely prevents
thrashing condition and aids in fast OOM killer invocation.


Can you please post your hardware information like what is the cpu, how much
memory you have and also post your sysctl knobs, like how do you set
vm.anon_min_kbytes,  vm.clean_low_kbytes and vm.clean_min_kbytes?

I have a typical office computer of year 2007:

* Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-945GCM-S2L (early LGA775 socket, GMA950 integrated graphics, September 2007)
* 2 core 64 bit CPU: Intel® Core™2 Duo E4600 (2 cores, 2.4 GHz, late 2007)
* 2 GB of RAM (DDR2 667 MHz, single module)
* Very old and slow 160 GB Hard Disk: Samsung HD161HJ (SATA II, June 2007):
* No discrete graphics card

I used vm.clean_low_kbytes=384000 (384 MB) to keep most of file cache in memory, because the HDD is slow and every data re-read leads to uncomfortable freezes and slow work.

More information, including the video, is here: https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/linux-for-old-pc-from-2007/en/


The similar file-locking patch is used in ChromeOS for nearly 10 years
but not on stock Linux or Android. It would be very beneficial for
lower-performance Android phones, SBCs, old PCs and other devices.


Can you post the link of the similar file-locking patch?

Here's a patch: https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/10/28/289
Here's more in-depth description: https://lkml.org/lkml/2010/11/1/20

Please also note that another Google developer, Yu Zhao, has also made a modern version of this (ChromiumOS) patch called MGLRU, the goal of which is quite similar to le9 (the patch we're discussing here), but with "more brains":
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220104202247.2903702-1-yuzhao@xxxxxxxxxx/T/#m8fd2a29bc557d27d1000f837f65b6c930eef9dff

Please take a moment and read the information in the link above. Yu Zhao develops this patch for almost two years and knows the issue better than me, a casual user.



With this patch, combined with zram, I'm able to run the following
software on an old office PC from 2007 with __only 2GB of RAM__
simultaneously:

   * Firefox with 37 active tabs (all data in RAM, no tab unloading)
   * Discord
   * Skype
   * LibreOffice with the document opened
   * Two PDF files (14 and 47 megabytes in size)

And the PC doesn't crawl like a snail, even with 2+ GB in zram!
Without the patch, this PC is barely usable.
Please watch the video:
https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/linux-for-old-pc-from-2007/en/


The video was captured before using this patch? what video says
"the result of the test computer after the configuration", what does
"the configuration" mean?

The video was captured after the patch. Before the patch, it's basically not possible to use Firefox only with 20+ tabs because the PC enters thrashing condition and reacts so slow that even mouse cursor freezes frequently. The PC is absolutely unusable for any decent work without the patch, regardless of swappiness, vm.min_free_kbytes or any other tunables.

The configuration is this patch with vm.clean_low_kbytes=384000 and 150% zram. More information is provided on the website.


Thanks
Barry

Attachment: OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature


[Index of Archives]     [Linux ARM Kernel]     [Linux ARM]     [Linux Omap]     [Fedora ARM]     [IETF Annouce]     [Bugtraq]     [Linux OMAP]     [Linux MIPS]     [eCos]     [Asterisk Internet PBX]     [Linux API]

  Powered by Linux