Dear Kuncoro.... Here is my "not so smart" answer...hope it helps.... > I traced the code at __alloc_pages(). It seems that buddy allocator > will wake up kswapd() when it can't fulfil the request. > What is the role of kswapd here? I think the reason is simple: since buddy allocator can't allocate enough page to satisfy your request, it is a signal toward kswapd to flush inactive page to the disk, thus freeing physical RAM. I believe the related function is something name shrink_cache and/or refill_inactive_page.... > However, I had changed kmalloc to vmalloc, and resulted in system > panic. (page fault). > Do you have any idea why? The only explanation I can think now: since vmalloc() allocate memory that is only virtually contigous but not necessarily physically contigous, it made several function related with hardware device internal's work which always assume physically contigous memory fail to work properly. Read the "Linux kernel Development" 1st edition page 175 about vmalloc(), there I got this raw conclusion regards Mulyadi -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
