Anton wrote:

>> - Don't create caches that are not multiples of L1_CACHE_BYTES.
>
>Nice idea, I often see the list walk (of the cache sizes) in kmalloc in kernel
>profiles. eg a bunch of kmalloc(2k) for network drivers.
>
>Since we have a 128byte cacheline on ppc64 this patch should reduce that.
>  
>
No, the patch is a bad thing: It means that everyone who does 
kmalloc(32,) now allocates 128 bytes, i.e. 3/4 wasted. IMHO not acceptable.

I agree that the list walk in kmalloc is a problem - but the right 
solution is a quicker lookup.
Perhaps something like the attached patch.
For networking: I bet that virtually all allocations have the same size 
- what about calling kmem_find_general_cachep, and caching the last 
request/result? Then the next calls can allocate directly from the 
appropriate cache, without any lookup.

--
    Manfred