On Sat, 9 Nov 1996, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> I would like to see a new MFS built that actually can grow and shrink
> its use of real memory and which takes solid advantage of the fact
> that RAM is not disk to optimize allocation.

While I agree with the latter, I'm not sure what the problem is
with the current MFS with regard to the former. Its use of real
memory is dealt with by the VM system, just like any other large
program.  The only real advantage I can see to having an MFS allocate
and de-allocate memory (rather than just allocating a large hunk
of VM and depending on the VM system's create-on-write semantics
to allocate real memory for that as it's used) is that you could
return swap space that had been used by MFS at one point when it
was using a lot of memory. On the other hand, if you're using MFS,
you can take the disk space you would normally use for /tmp and
give it to swap instead.

cjs

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