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Author Topic: LWN article on the various memory compression methods  (Read 5142 times)

Offline curaga

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LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« on: April 11, 2013, 10:26:52 AM »
http://lwn.net/Articles/545244/

It details the differences between zram, zcache and zswap.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline coreplayer2

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #1 on: April 11, 2013, 01:15:08 PM »
Very interesting, thanks

Offline curaga

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2013, 06:23:21 AM »
How it all relates to TC:

We use zram by default, and ship zcache so it can be configured by the user if needed.

The name of the bootcode, nozswap, comes from back when zram was called compcache.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline tinypoodle

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2013, 11:39:33 PM »
We use zram by default, and ship zcache so it can be configured by the user if needed.

The name of the bootcode, nozswap, comes from back when zram was called compcache.

As zswap just has been introduced in main - while zram and zcache remain in staging at current - I'd like to suggest considering renaming the "nozswap" boot code, in order to avoid (future) confusion.

For reference:
http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/ZSWAP.html
http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/ZRAM.html
http://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/ZCACHE.html
"Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." Niklaus Wirth - A Plea for Lean Software (1995)

Offline curaga

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #4 on: July 20, 2013, 05:16:02 AM »
Yes, with the 5.0 major release breaking the existing use would be more acceptable. Any suggestions for a good, short name? I'm out of them for the moment.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline curaga

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2013, 11:56:37 AM »
I'm not sure that's descriptive enough, as you can use zram on your own as a compressed ramdisk to store anything.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline tinypoodle

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Re: LWN article on the various memory compression methods
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2013, 03:55:27 PM »
True, but the way I understand it, "no*" boot codes would often refer to preventing some feature from being activated and configured with particular defaults at boot time, while not excluding a later activation with a potentially different configuration by user after boot.
"Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster." Niklaus Wirth - A Plea for Lean Software (1995)