MGLRU Patches Picked Up By Andrew Morton's "mm-unstable" Branch Ahead Of Linux 6.1

Written by Michael Larabel in Linux Kernel on 17 August 2022 at 07:55 PM EDT. Add A Comment
LINUX KERNEL
Multi-Gen LRU "MGLRU" is one of the most exciting low-level kernel innovations in recent time and is already used by Google's Chrome OS and Android as well as having proven itself in various other downstream kernel builds. MGLRU is planned for upstreaming in Linux 6.1 and in preparation for that, Andrew Morton has now queued those patches into his "mm-unstable" branch for further vetting.

MGLRU overhauls the Linux kernel's page reclamation code so it's smarter about page evictions and to do so in a more performant manner. MGLRU has shown to be of big advantage for Linux systems with limited amounts of memory and enhancing overall system performance. MGLRU was started by Google engineer Yu Zhao after finding the existing kernel page reclamation code to be insufficient and expensive.

MGLRU benchmarks are looking good from a variety of parties and many different workloads. After not aligning for the Linux 6.0 cycle, MGLRU is one of the features that has me already eager for Linux 6.1.

Today as part of working its way toward Linux 6.1, the MGLRU patches were picked up by Andrew Morton for his mm-unstable branch. The longtime kernel developer is the one that recently laid out the plans for getting both MGLRU and Maple Tree into Linux 6.1.

So the latest MGLRU work is in that memory management kernel branch for further testing over the coming weeks and assuming no last minute problems should be sent for mainline as part of the Linux 6.1 merge window in early October.


Those wishing to learn more about Multi-Gen LRU can see this design document as part of the queued patches.
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Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.

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