On 05/17/2017 10:09 AM, Michal Hocko wrote:
> From: Michal Hocko <mho...@suse.com>
>
> While converting drm_[cm]alloc* helpers to kvmalloc* variants Chris
> Wilson has wondered why we want to try kmalloc before vmalloc fallback
> even for larger allocations requests. Let's clarify that one larger
> physically contiguous block is less likely to fragment memory than many
> scattered pages which can prevent more large blocks from being created.
>
> Suggested-by: Chris Wilson <ch...@chris-wilson.co.uk>
> Signed-off-by: Michal Hocko <mho...@suse.com>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka <vba...@suse.cz>
> ---
> mm/util.c | 5 ++++-
> 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/mm/util.c b/mm/util.c
> index 464df3489903..87499f8119f2 100644
> --- a/mm/util.c
> +++ b/mm/util.c
> @@ -357,7 +357,10 @@ void *kvmalloc_node(size_t size, gfp_t flags, int node)
> WARN_ON_ONCE((flags & GFP_KERNEL) != GFP_KERNEL);
>
> /*
> - * Make sure that larger requests are not too disruptive - no OOM
> + * We want to attempt a large physically contiguous block first because
> + * it is less likely to fragment multiple larger blocks and therefore
> + * contribute to a long term fragmentation less than vmalloc fallback.
> + * However make sure that larger requests are not too disruptive - no
> OOM
> * killer and no allocation failure warnings as we have a fallback
> */
> if (size > PAGE_SIZE) {
>
