[Gllug] Linux 2.4.10 is out with better VM

[Stig Brautaset]

* Christian Smith <csmith at micromuse.com> spake thus:
> On Sat, 6 Oct 2001, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> 
> >On Sat, Oct 06, 2001 at 12:31:30AM +0100, David Irvine wrote:
> >> I'd also be interested to know if they  have vixed the VM bugs
> >> since i'm still contemplating going back to 2.2.18
> >
> >Make that 2.2.19, .18 has some issues.  Must say, 2.4.x seems to be
> >taking much longer than 2.2.x did to settle down.  The difference
> >between stable and development kernels seems to have blurred (from
> >the stability point of view, anyway).  I suppose it's a legacy of
> >2.4's troubled gestation.
> 
> All a legacy of a VM system that was derived from the origional x86
> model.  In VM terms, Linux is where 4.3BSD was, which had a VM system
> based on the VAX, and generalised to try to make it 'portable' to
> other architectures.
> 
> 4.4BSD took the sensible route, and threw out the old VM and imported
> a new one from Mach. OpenBSD and NetBSD have gone one further, and
> created a new VM system from scratch: UVM -
> http://ccrc.wustl.edu/pub/chuck/tech/uvm/
> 
> What Linux should do, probably in 2.5 is simply rip out the existing
> VM, and import a new VM or write one from scratch. They could do much
> worse than using the UVM model. Unfortunately, I don't think the plans
> are that radical, with current plan being to simply implement a
> reverse page mapping. There is currently some hot debate on linux-mm
> whether reverse mappings are worthwhile.
> 
> It has to be said that the Linux VM system is not as clean as either
> BSD or SysV.
> 
> Is this stuff worth doing a GLLUG talk on? Would people be interested
> in the VM architecture of various OSes?

*raises hand* 

Since there is a lot of talk these days about VM, I would like to know a
bit more. In the meantime, I'll be content with knowing what it *is*:

Arwen:~$ wtf is VM
Gee...  I don't know what VM means...

Oh well. I guess I will have to stfw :D

Regards,
Stig

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brautaset.org
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