Subject: Re: [PATCH 18/31] powerpc/mm: Increase the pte frag size.

From: "Aneesh Kumar K.V" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 2015 14:15:08 +0530

Benjamin Herrenschmidt <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Mon, 2015-09-21 at 12:10 +0530, Aneesh Kumar K.V wrote:
>> /*
>> - * We use a 2K PTE page fragment and another 2K for storing
>> - * real_pte_t hash index
>> + * We use a 2K PTE page fragment and another 4K for storing
>> + * real_pte_t hash index. Rounding the entire thing to 8K
>>   */
>
> Isn't this a LOT of memory wasted ? Page tables have a non-negligible
> footprint, we were already wasting half, now we are wasting 3/4 no ?
>

The actual math is, we used to allocate 16 PTE page from a 64K page
before. We now do 8 pte page from a 64K linux page. 

> Ie, in most cases on modern machines we never use the other "half"...
>

That is true. We will use this only when we use 4K subpage. But I am
not sure there is a better solution. Also, we should find this slightly
imporve our contention on ptl lock. With SPLIT_PTLOCK we now have less
number of pte page using the same spin lock.

-aneesh