From: "Mika Boström" <bostik@bostik.iki.fi>
To: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com>,
Michal Hocko <mhocko@suse.cz>,
linux-mm@kvack.org,
KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki <kamezawa.hiroyu@jp.fujitsu.com>,
KOSAKI Motohiro <kosaki.motohiro@jp.fujitsu.com>,
LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] add some drop_caches documentation and info messsge
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:45:47 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20121026074547.GA25935@bostik.iki.fi> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20121024134836.a28d223a.akpm@linux-foundation.org>
On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 01:48:36PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> Dave Hansen <dave@linux.vnet.ibm.com> wrote:
> > What kind of interface _is_ it in the first place? Is it really a
> > production-level thing that we expect users to be poking at? Or, is it
> > a rarely-used debugging and benchmarking knob which is fair game for us
> > to tweak like this?
>
> It was a rarely-used mainly-developer-only thing which, apparently, real
> people found useful at some point in the past. Perhaps we should never
> have offered it.
I've found it useful on occasion when generating large public keys.
When key generation hangs due to not-enough-entropy, dropping all
caches (followed by an intensive read) has allowed the system to
collect enough entropy to let the key generation finish.
Usefulness of the trick is probably going the way of the dodo, thanks to
SSD's becoming more common.
--
Mika Boström Individualisti, eksistentialisti,
www.iki.fi/bostik rationalisti ja mulkvisti
GPG: 0x2AED22CC; 6FC9 8375 31B7 3BA2 B5DC 484E F19F 8AD6 2AED 22CC
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2012-10-26 7:56 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 33+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2012-10-12 12:57 [PATCH] add some drop_caches documentation and info messsge Michal Hocko
2012-10-12 18:54 ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2012-10-15 9:04 ` Kamezawa Hiroyuki
2012-10-15 14:05 ` Dave Hansen
2012-10-23 23:45 ` Andrew Morton
2012-10-24 6:29 ` Michal Hocko
2012-10-24 19:54 ` Andrew Morton
2012-10-24 20:28 ` Dave Hansen
2012-10-24 20:48 ` Andrew Morton
2012-10-24 21:06 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-24 21:13 ` Andrew Morton
2012-10-24 22:04 ` Rafael J. Wysocki
2012-10-25 1:17 ` Andrew Morton
2012-10-25 20:16 ` Rafael J. Wysocki
2012-10-29 8:59 ` Jiri Kosina
2012-10-29 9:58 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-29 10:01 ` Jiri Kosina
2012-10-29 10:11 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-31 17:31 ` Pavel Machek
2012-10-31 17:46 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-24 22:35 ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2012-10-25 14:21 ` Michal Hocko
2012-10-24 21:18 ` Dave Hansen
2012-10-24 22:48 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-24 22:57 ` Dave Hansen
2012-10-25 0:56 ` KOSAKI Motohiro
2012-10-25 9:24 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-25 11:57 ` Dave Hansen
2012-10-25 14:24 ` Borislav Petkov
2012-10-25 14:25 ` Michal Hocko
2012-10-26 7:45 ` Mika Boström [this message]
2012-11-01 20:26 ` Pavel Machek
2012-10-25 14:09 ` Michal Hocko
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