Subject: Re: Smoother writing for LFS
To: None <tech-kern@NetBSD.org>
From: Steven M. Bellovin <smb@cs.columbia.edu>
List: tech-kern
Date: 10/24/2006 20:37:51
Let me suggest that any rewrite separate policy from mechanism -- we may
want other policies.

To give one example, Linux has a different page write strategy when
running on battery.  Normally, it does try to trickle out pages, much as
has been suggested here.  If on battery, though, it doesn't -- but if a
write is actually needed, it flushes a lot (everything?) on the assumption
that if it's bothered to spin up the disk, it should clear out everything
pending.