mm/page_alloc: remove prefetchw() on freeing page to buddy system
authorWei Yang <richard.weiyang@gmail.com>
Tue, 2 Jul 2024 02:09:31 +0000 (02:09 +0000)
committerAndrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Wed, 10 Jul 2024 19:14:54 +0000 (12:14 -0700)
commit689d92cc81ac57ca6b674be8728b9c5ea5c725fd
tree293d77a324b66ce8ace99e19248368d59ffb9cab
parent9325585288f2742b4b6effd5246154c374b9100f
mm/page_alloc: remove prefetchw() on freeing page to buddy system

The prefetchw() is introduced from an ancient patch[1].

The change log says:

    The basic idea is to free higher order pages instead of going
    through every single one.  Also, some unnecessary atomic operations
    are done away with and replaced with non-atomic equivalents, and
    prefetching is done where it helps the most.  For a more in-depth
    discusion of this patch, please see the linux-ia64 archives (topic
    is "free bootmem feedback patch").

So there are several changes improve the bootmem freeing, in which the
most basic idea is freeing higher order pages.  And as Matthew says,
"Itanium CPUs of this era had no prefetchers."

I did 10 round bootup tests before and after this change, the data doesn't
prove prefetchw() help speeding up bootmem freeing.  The sum of the 10
round bootmem freeing time after prefetchw() removal even 5.2% faster than
before.

[1]: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-ia64/40F46962.4090604@sgi.com/

Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20240702020931.7061-1-richard.weiyang@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Wei Yang <richard.weiyang@gmail.com>
Suggested-by: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: David Hildenbrand <david@redhat.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
mm/page_alloc.c