mayfield@saffron.cs.ucdavis.edu (Doug Mayfield) writes:
: 
: Howdy LINUXers,
:       I have what may be a simple question:  In the file 
: /usr/src/linux/fs/buffer.c there is a procedure called shrink_buffers
: but I can not find the place where this function is invoked.  Is this
: a function that was left in for some other purpose.  I was trying to
: find a way to make the kernel stop using so many buffers and found
: this function but no place where it is called.  
: 
:       Is there some reason for this or am I just not looking hard
: enough???  Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

It is called from mm/swap.c. I don't think you actually want to be
reducing the number of buffers. The number of buffers gets reduced
automatically when the system runs out of memory. It then starts
swapping and re-useing buffers as user memory.

The relevent routine is mm/swap.c::get_free_page(int priority);

 
: ------------------------------------------------------------
: Douglas B. Mayfield