Folio Improvements For Linux 5.17, Large Folio Patches Posted

Back in November memory folios were merged into Linux 5.16 as a fundamental change to the memory management code. Now for Linux 5.17 there are improvements for folios merged and then out likely for Linux 5.18 is introducing the notion of large folios.

Linux's memory folios is designed to let file-systems and the page cache manage memory in chunks larger than the default page size. With Linux 5.16 the core memory management and page cache changes landed for supporting folios. Most benchmarks of folios put the performance benefit in the 0~10% region.

Merged for Linux 5.17 is the folios update that includes converting much of the page cache code to using folios.

Meanwhile Matthew Wilcox of Oracle posted the set of patches on Sunday for enabling large folios. Those patches allow creating large folios in the readahead and fault paths and works with the XFS file-system for now. However, this large folios work isn't intended for Linux 5.17 and will likely be deemed ready for mainline inclusion with the v5.18 cycle in the spring.