LKML News v6.1-rc1

[RFC UKL 00/10] Unikernel Linux (UKL) (Ali Raza)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221003222133.20948-1-aliraza@bu.edu

This RFC patchset introduces a research project called Unikernel Linux which integrates application specific optimization to the Linux kernel. It links an application directly with kernel and runs it in the supervisor mode.

[PATCH v6] mm: add zblock - new allocator for use via zpool API (Ananda)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221005053302.30387-1-a.badmaev@clicknet.pro

This patchset introduces a new allocator for zpool API. The author says it is better than zsmalloc in terms of worst execution time and therefore good at real-time usage.

[RFC PATCH 0/4] Introduce mempool pages bulk allocator the use it in dm-crypt (Yang Shi)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221005180341.1738796-1-shy828301@gmail.com

This patch introduces a mempool bulk pages allocator that supposed to be used in dm-crypt as it shows noticeable overhead when writing on full disk encryption is enabled.

How to track the LRU pages access? (Jin Huang)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CACV+naoF8bmVu8dEziSsttPaiHpiamNdRGAhHeZt3sq873jb2A@mail.gmail.com

A graduate student is asking about a way for tracking accesses to pages in LRU lists.

[GIT PULL] MM updates for 6.1-rc1 (Andrew Morton)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221008132113.919b9b894426297de78ac00f@linux-foundation.org

Andrew sent the pull request for MM to Linus. It contains, MGLRU, Maple tree, DAMON cleanups, MADV_THP_COLLAPSE, and many interesting changes.

[RFC PATCH] mm: skip GFP_IO if swap is zram only (Zhaoyang Huang)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/1665399622-20236-1-git-send-email-zhaoyang.huang@unisoc.com

This RFC patch makes __GFP_IO to do acclocation even if it can be suspended due to zram swap, as zram is believed to be faster one unlike the normal physical block devices.

[RFC] UABI to show system memory encryption (Martin Fernandez)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAKgze5bvqPLo7VZs8rCWc2rFsUekx_d0coKFzObi=J+_nPOacg@mail.gmail.com

This RFC patch shows system memory encryption status to user.

[GIT PULL] non-MM updates for 6.1-rc1 (Andrew Morton)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221011190341.511a73168c42a296fd6589a6@linux-foundation.org

Andrew sent pull request for non-MM updates for v6.1-rc1 to Linus Torvalds.

[PATCH v3 0/3] THP Shrinker (Alexander Zhu)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/cover.1665614216.git.alexlzhu@fb.com

Third version of the patchset for splitting not-well-utilized THPs for better memory efficiency has posted.

[GIT PULL] Final MM updates for 6.1-rc1 (Andrew Morton)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20221013230302.96f2869cd26026b36e8ecd40@linux-foundation.org

Andrew sent the final MM changes pull request to Linus Torvalds.

Linux 6.1-rc1 (Linus Torvalds)

https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAHk-=wj6y5fipM2A5kEuOO9qm5PBzUY=-m9viEahhtxT09KR_g@mail.gmail.com

After the two weeks, the first release candidate of Linux 6.1 has released. It’s not a big release, but contains some major changes including Multi-gen LRU and Rust infrastructure. It contains no Rust code but only the infrastructure, though. Linus also mentions that he was frustrated due to a problem on his personal machine and late pull requests.

Below is the diffstat of the releases in the last two years.

Note that the y-axis is in logarithm. I draw it using https://github.com/sjp38/relstat and https://github.com/sjp38/lazybox using below command:

$ relstat.py --since 2020-10-17 | ~/lazybox/gnuplot/plot.py \
    --data_fmt table --type labeled-lines --xtics_rotate -90 \
    --font "Times New Roman, 5pt" --ylog --pointsize 0.3

And, below is the diffstat of the -rc1 releases in the last two years.