On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 10:47 AM Roman Gushchin <roman.gushchin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 08, 2022 at 04:55:29PM +0100, Vlastimil Babka wrote: > > Hi, > > > > as we all know, we currently have three slab allocators. As we discussed at > > LPC [1], it is my hope that one of these allocators has a future, and two of > > them do not. > > > > The unsurprising reasons include code maintenance burden, other features > > compatible with only a subset of allocators (or more effort spent on the > > features), blocking API improvements (more on that below), and my inability > > to pronounce SLAB and SLUB in a properly distinguishable way, without > > resorting to spelling out the letters. > > > > I think (but may be proven wrong) that SLOB is the easier target of the two > > to be removed, so I'd like to focus on it first. > > Great! > > SLOB is not supported by the kernel memory accounting code, so if we'll > deprecate SLOB, we can remove all those annoying ifndefs. > > But I wonder if we can deprecate SLAB too? Or at least use the moment to > ask every non-SLUB user on why they can't/don't want to use SLUB. > Are there any known advantages of SLAB over SLUB? We use SLAB at Google, but I am not the right person to answer the question of why we can't/don't use SLUB. Adding Greg here who recently looked into this and might have answers. I see David is already tagged, he might have a good answer as well. > > Also, for memory-constrained users we might want to add some guide on how > to configure SLUB to minimize the memory footprint. > > Thank you! > > Roman >
