He indicated that he would threaten to include reiser4 in 2.6.19 once we got our fixes back to him (as a way of getting more comments), and that it would most likely go in in 2.6.20 as a result. I told him that most of the team was on vacation or sick, so we would probably be delayed in getting the fixes back to him. If by chance more of the work is done than I fear, it would be nice to get it to him soon...
We discussed dentry cache, and the framgentation problems it has (where one dentry being active keeps a whole page around). He suggested that by using the reclaim code and ignoring the cases where dentries are referenced, they could be repacked without too much coding. I think we both think repacking is the right answer, as dcache is very inefficient in its pruning without it. We discussed the library vs. control thread owning issues for the generic code. I think he agrees in principle, but I sense he would want to see a good generic code library approach implemented before he would accept it, which is rather reasonable. He prefers fixing generic code to needlessly duplicating it. He said that inodes and dentries don't saw tooth in their usage. I had remembered the code as letting them increase to more and more percentage of RAM until their is a crisis shortage of memory, at which point the shrink_* code for them gets finally invoked. He assured me I was incorrect, I guess I need to go reread that code. All in all, he is a very perceptive and reasonable fellow who knows what he is doing. hans
