This would have to do with the new VM subsystem that Linus put into the
2.4.10 and above kernels. Prior to 2.4.10, the kernels used a VM designed by
Rik van Riel (sp?), but it needed a redesign. Andrea Arcangeli designed a
completely new VM, and this is what is in the 2.4.10 and above kernels; it
is very different from the previous implementation, and thus has a different
/proc/sys/vm structure. Hope that answers your question.
-----------------------------------------------
Sean P. Elble
Editor, Writer, Co-Webmaster
ReactiveLinux.com (Formerly MaximumLinux.org)
http://www.reactivelinux.com/
elbles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Schroll" <ths@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <linux-xfs@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 11:41 PM
Subject: 2.4.16 & procps
>
> Long time IRIX admin...Long time believer in XFS...First time on this
> mailing list... :-)
>
> My question is regarding a i686 RH7.2 system. I recently installed
> the RedHat 7.2 distribution with XFS-1.0.2 support. Everything went
> perfectly. No problems with the default 2.4.9 kernel. Then I tuned
> (compiled) 2.4.9 with only my server's drivers. No problems. Then I
> downloaded the 2.4.14 kernel. Tuned it and compiled it with the same
> parameters as the 2.4.9 kernel. Suddenly, free/top (and other procps
> type apps) reports the following:
>
> kernel 2.4.14 and 2.4.16:
>
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 513104 50428 462676 0 0 30820
> -/+ buffers/cache: 19608 493496
> Swap: 530136 0 530136
>
> [root@thunder][/root]# ls -al /proc/sys/vm
> total 0
> dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 .
> dr-xr-xr-x 10 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 ..
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 bdflush
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 kswapd
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 max-readahead
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 min-readahead
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 overcommit_memory
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 page-cluster
> dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 pagebuf
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:12 pagetable_cache
>
>
> Yet if I boot back to 2.4.9, /proc/sys/vm once again shows more parameters
> (specifically the buffers parameter).
>
> kernel 2.4.9:
>
> total 0
> dr-xr-xr-x 3 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 .
> dr-xr-xr-x 10 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 ..
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 bdflush
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 buffermem
> -r--r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 freepages
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 kswapd
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 overcommit_memory
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 page-cluster
> dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 pagebuf
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 pagecache
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Dec 10 23:28 pagetable_cache
>
> Does anybody know what's up with the buffers and other things missing from
> /proc/sys/vm?
>
> -- Tom Schroll SkyMagik Internet Services
> "Do what you will, but harm none."
> email: tom@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> web: http://www.skymagik.net
> tonight: the moon is waning crescent (25% of full)
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