Message-Id: <m0wL66q-000FmbC@hn.planet.gen.nz>
Date: Sat, 26 Apr 97 23:57 NZST
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To: grendel AT hoth DOT amu DOT edu DOT pl
From: Lorier <lorier AT ihug DOT co DOT nz>
Subject: Re: Usage of directory entries
Cc: alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk, Matthias DOT Paul AT post DOT rwth-aachen DOT de,
        opendos-developer AT delorie DOT com
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At 02:41 PM 25/04/97 +0100, Mark Habersack wrote:
>Once upon a time (on 24 Apr 97 at 20:08) Alaric B. Williams said:
>
>> > mkisofs, for example) - that way the defragmenter is either not run at
>> > or its work is wasted everytime the file system is written with the huge
>> > amount of data output from mkisofs?
>> 
>> In which case, run it like a parallel garbage collector - match it to the
>> rate of garbage creation.
>> 
>> A garbage collector is a process that deallocates memory automatically. 
>> a GC, you never call free() - you just leave memory lying around, and the
>> cleans up after you. Now, a parallel GC runs as a seperate thread. The
>> system looks at the amount of memory being allocated by the program, and
>> amount of memory being found as unreachable by the GC. If the program is
>> allocating faster than the GC is freeing, the GC gets a priority boost,
>> fragmenting, and use it as a basis for the clock ticks allocated to the
>> defragger.
>mmm... sounds sensible. Do you know of any GC already working somewhere?

Java has a nice one.

I still think that running a defragger is rather useless if we can use a FS
that doesn't require it :)

Have it start one up if there hasn't been any activity for 2 hours and the
loadavg is low... (so people that leave there PC's on over night wake up to
a faster PC :) but don't do it while the user is typing or anything...