From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756037AbXD0Pzi (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:55:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1756040AbXD0Pzi (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:55:38 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([65.172.181.25]:40542 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756037AbXD0PzU (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Apr 2007 11:55:20 -0400 Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 08:54:47 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: "John Anthony Kazos Jr." cc: Mike Galbraith , LKML , Andrew Morton , Jens Axboe Subject: Re: [ext3][kernels >= 2.6.20.7 at least] KDE going comatose when FS is under heavy write load (massive starvation) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: <1177660767.6567.41.camel@Homer.simpson.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Fri, 27 Apr 2007, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote: > > Could[/should] this stuff be changed from ratios to amounts? Or a quick > boot-time test to use a ratio if the memory is small and an amount (like > tax brackets, I would expect) if it's great? Yes, the "percentage" thing was likely wrong. That said, there *is* some correlation between "lots of memory" and "high-end machine", and that in turn tends to correlate with "fast disk", so I don't think the percentage approach is really *horribly* wrong. The main issue with the percentage is that we do export them as such through the /proc/ interface, and they are easy to change and understand. So changing them to amounts is non-trivial if you also want to support the old interfaces - and the advantage isn't obvious enough that it's a clear-cut case. Linus