So if some memory needs to be swapped out to disk (in order to free memory that can be returned to the process calling kmalloc), I understand Disk IO should suffice. But my doubt is how can a filesystem IO help to free memory (so that it can be returned to the process calling kmalloc)?
Ummm ... not sure ... but just a direction to think upon. There memory occupied by VFS / filesystems may be holding some buffers (of certain files). So a file system request may be used to flush these buffers to the disk, and thus free memory to be returned. Thanks, Rajat -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/