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Date:      Sat, 10 Feb 1996 05:55:17 -0500 (EST)
From:      Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com>
To:        luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it (Luigi Rizzo)
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Compressed RAM/SWAP
Message-ID:  <199602101055.FAA09574@hda.com>
In-Reply-To: <199602101043.LAA04471@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> from "Luigi Rizzo" at Feb 10, 96 11:43:51 am

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> 
> > If there are lots of zero'd pages that aren't used that often,
> > can't be eliminated, and would benefit from compression wouldn't
> > it be better to look at a ZFOD (zero fill on demand) mechanism?
> 
> But this only works if the pages are not accessed at all. The first
> time they are accessed they must be filled up.

Well, yes, but for reads they can all point to the same underlying
page, and for writes you're changing them anyway (and if you are
sure the writes have to happen before they are accessed again you
don't even need to fill them).

If the problems are lots of zero pages it seems that there is a
better way than compression, though I guess you can argue this is
just compression optimized for zero pages.

I better back off this discussion as it is outside my usual work.
I'll let someone who knows this stuff comment.

-- 
Peter Dufault               Real-Time Machine Control and Simulation
HD Associates, Inc.         Voice: 508 433 6936
dufault@hda.com             Fax:   508 433 5267



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