Re: Folio discussion recap

["Kirill A. Shutemov" <kirill@shutemov.name>]

On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 05:17:09PM -0400, Kent Overstreet wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 11:57:35PM +0300, Kirill A. Shutemov wrote:
> > On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 12:31:36PM -0400, Johannes Weiner wrote:
> > > I didn't suggest to change what the folio currently already is for the
> > > page cache. I asked to keep anon pages out of it (and in the future
> > > potentially other random stuff that is using compound pages).
> > 
> > It would mean that anon-THP cannot benefit from the work Willy did with
> > folios. Anon-THP is the most active user of compound pages at the moment
> > and it also suffers from the compound_head() plague. You ask to exclude
> > anon-THP siting *possible* future benefits for pagecache.
> > 
> > Sorry, but this doesn't sound fair to me.
> 
> I'm less concerned with what's fair than figuring out what the consensus is so
> we can move forward. I agree that anonymous THPs could benefit greatly from
> conversion to folios - but looking at the code it doesn't look like much of that
> has been done yet.
> 
> I understand you've had some input into the folio patches, so maybe you'd be
> best able to answer while Matthew is away - would it be fair to say that, in the
> interests of moving forward, anonymous pages could be split out for now? That
> way the MM people gain time to come to their own consensus and we can still
> unblock the FS work that's already been done on top of folios.

I can't answer for Matthew.

Anon conversion patchset doesn't exists yet (but it is in plans) so
there's nothing to split out. Once someone will come up with such patchset
he has to sell it upstream on its own merit.

Possible future efforts should not block code at hands. "Talk is cheap.
Show me the code."

-- 
 Kirill A. Shutemov