Lorenzo Stoakes

mm contributor*, kernel/systems developer, writing a book about mm.

C/C++/(rust at some point!)

Book - https://linuxmemory.org/
Me - https://ljs.io/

* I am currently a reviewer for vmalloc but contribute patches in many different areas of mm.
I always have a LOT more to learn :)

Arsenal fan, cat maniac.

Public Key

npub14ygxua0hfmvgtrjnrwvcuf9epdkzmlmeje7q6ppt02lehtmdsphsnyfu5r

NIP-05 Address

ljs_at_social.kernel.org@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqs2jyrwwhm5aky93ef3hxvwyjuskmpdlauevlqdqs4h40um4akcqmc6nffdf

Author Public Key

npub14ygxua0hfmvgtrjnrwvcuf9epdkzmlmeje7q6ppt02lehtmdsphsnyfu5r

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Last Notes

2024-08-04 06:16:28

$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 197690952 kB
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/8339cc55397cfb1116b42d3802d972d0361a097527051320c19a205af036aab2.png

2024-07-31 13:52:58

Doggy cat
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/99a0e36486e8ed0ad1cdd82da4d0cf0c11772633875a38f0640dd360d338c263.png

2024-07-28 20:27:54

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@npub1vse…v7q2 where's your ink prepper youtube chan?

2024-07-28 20:26:20

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@npub1vse…v7q2 ink bro? Ink is so last century bro

2024-07-26 07:44:00

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@npub1vse…v7q2 SIR THERE WEREN'T EVEN TOASTERS. JUST A DOT SIR.

2024-07-26 07:41:54

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@npub1vse…v7q2 sir, I expect to be able to use my computer and for it not to be locked upsir.

2024-07-26 07:40:45

Try xscreensaver, looks cool.
Go to gym, come back, fans blasting at 100% system locked.
Untry xscreensaver.
*Before anyone asks I'm using X because of nvidia hw

2024-07-25 09:02:06

obsidian is great.

2024-07-24 07:52:35

Given I work full time from home I wonder if I should just fuck off to Brno for a couple days (assuming I get permission etc.)

2024-07-22 20:07:15

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@npub1vse…v7q2 sarcasm detected..

2024-07-22 20:00:50

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@npub1vse…v7q2 don't agree, he resisted it right up until the point it became unviable... And not sure 'grace' is a word I'd use to describe his performances.

2024-07-20 20:24:09

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@npub1vse…v7q2 don't fuck with geese mate they're absolutely mental animals

2024-07-20 16:42:01

Cherry is inviting you to rub her belly on #caturday
She assures you it is entirely safe and there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of anything sharp impacting your skin. None.
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/d57366022eb06031874fa263424b4b50a604319b400ed06574d7b7d2ebf9d0cf.png

2024-07-18 14:59:16

It's sadly common now to see 'famous' people completely misrepresent kernel issues on social media to sycophants who know nothing about the kernel.
Take whines about the state of things with a giant pinch of salt, especially if they're from known 'difficult' people...

2024-07-12 10:28:31

Accurate
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/52dce2f447803bc7b3304a030475cca7636f6d82b9b8ef1f37d60e0b6d32c4a6.png

2024-07-09 08:06:49

The worst drivers are those who _overtake_ at a roundabout using the outer lane. It's utterly mental and so, so dangerous but surprisingly common...

2024-07-07 18:07:37

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@npub1vse…v7q2 you know I can catch a flight from stanstead straight there?
Imagine it.

2024-07-01 05:41:36

From today I'm no longer a hobbyist kernel mm hacker but a full time professional :>)
Been a long road to get here but very excited and humbled to do this thing full time and do my best to improve memory management in the Linux Kernel!

2024-06-20 09:43:26

Lost enough weight that this shirt no longer looks ridiculous on me!
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/99adeef85f66c4ea5e1c0032d0dc4c887fffaadf2405639ab65af5a96cc4f8c7.png

2024-06-11 08:30:39

Greatest CPU of all time.
Sadly the world wasn't ready
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/3cbceb67975915efd7c88f51e40a3765a9112ab36536bac638d6c14cab7cf97e.png

2024-06-10 10:40:34

Linus judging all from the window
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/aa4b27af238d8f35d9acb731d2b77e9df294f740fd8cf3aebbf7862e02224bba.png

2024-06-05 20:59:16

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@npub1vse…v7q2 Ostrava

2024-05-18 19:52:52

Rule of thumb: If your use of source control could equally be achieved with tarballs, you're living in the 1970's.

2024-05-18 17:44:09

Another case where detailed commit messages really really help.
It blows my mind that any project decides not to provide detailed commit messages when the benefits are so massive...!
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=1899ad18c6072d689896badafb81267b0a1092a4

2024-05-05 19:28:32

Very happy, tired and relieved to say that I have just finished the 1st draft of the swap chapter.
That leaves only 1 chapter to go before the 1st draft of the book is complete after roughly 2 years of work :)
The remaining chapter is reclaim, of which I've written about 50% of the pages.
It's a chonker of a subject but I'm hoping to get it done within the next month or so. Fact tomorrow is a bank holiday helps!
https://linuxmemory.org/progress

2024-05-05 14:32:20

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@npub1dfe…yx8m this is just nature my friend

2024-05-05 14:28:46

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@npub1dfe…yx8m by telling them that listening to the album from start to end will bring a cat into their lives

2024-05-05 14:01:19

LISTEN TO AN ALBUM ABOUT CATS NOW OR I UNFOLLOW YOU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF4C5apqZ9U

2024-04-27 19:48:11

I represent as a #catdaddy in the gym on #caturday
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/21711cf4f0993374a3e9c28b29923d037e264dedd0eb67b4a49f26c9cdc88410.png

2024-04-15 19:55:53

RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY?
TRY THIS ONE AMAZING TRICK 'THEY' DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT!
echo f | sudo tee /proc/sysrq-trigger
GUARANTEED TO FREE UP YOUR MEMORY (i.e. chrome) QUICK!
YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO! MEMORY IS ABUNDANT AND FREE!

2024-04-13 18:40:22

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@npub1vse…v7q2 shit too late!

2024-04-12 17:08:07

My cats might be slow, but I love them anyway
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/90cd9e7b2d9ab48b61259dd046f5ec01d5fc57a481b997ea74f5f94c37a04321.png

2024-04-06 12:44:10

Happy #caturday everyone!
https://media.social.kernel.org/media/3f9c32bf6e1133ccd697f6991730bc7886ec5a51a91e0f2dcc3c7fd950c32d06.png

2024-04-06 12:41:36

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@npub129g…4kwg oh is rust javascript now?

2024-04-01 14:53:18

And now a nice pic of Jim #catmonday
https://social.kernel.org/media/fcc6afd2dadad420b43ef3553f333e17abce176b3f36f5e2d58323be06aea4b5.png

2024-03-31 19:20:09

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@npub1vse…v7q2 you make me want to live there more + more

2024-03-25 21:03:55

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@npub19zq…u4m5 cats are the entire purpose of being, the rest is a footnote

2024-03-25 21:03:01

Jim is in AWE at the stupidity of your suggestion
https://social.kernel.org/media/507a3b9d60e957c5b9f8e45cfea7b5c0b64e40d0a8845e860b5a29790a620e26.png

2024-03-25 20:42:02

My favourite OS of all time is Microsoft Bob

2024-03-25 20:15:40

Since I'm being boring and moaning about the scam de jour again, let me also go 'WTF' about people blindly taking the word of people who stand to make BILLIONS OF DOLLARS on this topic at face value?
Like I don't fucking want to hear 'the CEO of nvidia says AI stuff is incredible', yeah OBVIOUSLY he says that, I mean jesus christ how naive are people??
"I asked the local butcher whether he thinks more people should buy meat and he said they should!"
WOWWWW!!

2024-03-17 11:00:02

Made a windows partition for the very few games that won't work with linux, 1 day in and... 🤣
https://social.kernel.org/media/203b18ea37730855adabb513dc1001225db6b8194727e6c0fb7c330b0143f5ae.png

2024-03-15 21:39:26

Linus Clawvalds as much as we love him has a brain the size of a walnut
https://social.kernel.org/media/3c9eb36994923f79413de764a42082974abb819ddde50f4c3e03bab3785aa788.png

2024-03-05 08:31:09

Day off today and it feels glorious.
Funny how when you really need time off to get your head together you don't realise quite how much you needed it until you do it

2024-02-25 15:33:01

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@npub19zq…u4m5 haha perfect

2024-02-25 15:28:23

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@npub19zq…u4m5 more of a hand fan except it looks a lot like the 'bye bye' gesture

2024-02-25 15:23:24

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@npub19zq…u4m5 I'm 166cm but the fan element is less the case

2024-02-25 11:49:40

I must confess I am not a HUGE fan of python

2024-02-24 20:13:03

A beautiful thing about kernel code is that you can dig and dig and dig and dig some more and find, and eventually you understand.
It's quite a pleasing experience.

2024-02-24 17:36:32

Jim is possibly happy to see you! #caturday
https://social.kernel.org/media/d945d6fe21790655c2e44689ac5523633c0f7adea0c02f3a2e51035321488042.png

2024-02-14 09:06:00

Who knew a stream of kernel dev could be so popular
Face cam too, maybe my winning smile could get me some viewers if I did it?
(forgive the post-workout greasy hair and unkempt beard)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSs0v2Fmnhc
https://social.kernel.org/media/8f949e72dfaa72eaef6cae72af37c7acc67d7b977da233b227a11708f02ebe3f.png

2024-02-12 20:00:20

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@npub19zq…u4m5 @npub17e2…qj4x is it running the tip kernel? ;)

2024-02-12 19:55:19

@npub17e2…qj4x linux needs to do the same...
#note14zm…2jfk

2024-02-09 09:33:40

Back at gym finally (YES!)
But it was a sucky session - I'm still weaker than I should be as not 100% covered, I ended up wearing a top I never normally wear that exposed my shall we say 'extra padding' rather too obviously and just felt a little embarrassed.
Still, I have come to love the gym despite all that bollocks and so happy to be back REGARDLESS of that.
And now I shall resume my fairly intense routine and get back to working on them GAINZ SON

2024-02-06 19:14:38

If ever you feel ashamed about your own career, remember that not only did Liz Truss - one of the least talented people in the UK - manage to become PM, astonishingly she continues to attempt to do public things in 'support' of her political party.
If there are people who are that shameless out there, then there is nothing stopping you!

2023-12-27 12:29:35

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@npub1cm7…32y8
Full of interesting info but I feel that people are talking past each other.
WAYLAND BREAKS EVERYTHING!
NO IT DOESN'T!
They're both wrong. It's wrong to say wayland is some terrible mess that breaks the world and it's wrong to say it doesn't break anything or there are workarounds.
In reality and _I have tried it_ and recently too, and yeah a TON of stuff was broken and no, sorry, XWayland didn't fix it. I was also _forced_ to move because of distro choices (tbf a distro run by a dickhead but still).
Can we stop this gaslighting saying otherwise? But also can we stop the gaslighting pretending like we don't have to move or x11 is ok?
The correct take imo is YES WAYLAND BREAKS THINGS. But it's inevitable. We HAVE to move, x11 is horribly broken and we are just in this painful transitional period switching between the two.
Everybody can be friends :)

2023-12-20 15:17:38

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@npub1k35…xgzh @npub17e2…qj4x Christ on a pogo stick what?
I was already less than impressed when the bpf guys implemented their own allocator without any involvement of mm...

2023-12-20 08:07:30

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@npub1cm7…32y8 Wonder if the Virginia thing is a nod to https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.0/source/mm/page-writeback.c#L2826 ? :)

2023-12-02 22:30:05

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@npub17hj…7a0r I hope things get better, but also that's a fucking great quote.

2023-11-19 21:41:21

Linus being helpful with the book as usual
https://social.kernel.org/media/1638a0efddeec1d487066ee60430683fdd5fce7f03781dac664d8655266d70ea.png

2023-11-14 11:25:32

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@npub1cm7…32y8 @npub1vv9…yuny I've tried to engage sincerely and seen others do the same, ultimately these people just resume doing exactly what they always did without listening.
It's sort of pointless pushing back really.
This guy (god I'm ashamed that he's also in HFT) you can tell has a huge ego and is not going to take push back well, which is probably why he posted it like this.

2023-11-14 11:14:02

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@npub1cm7…32y8 @npub1vv9…yuny The title is completely wrong.
The kernel stops scaling a scheduler parameter past 8 cores because it's probably heuristically determined to not be worthwhile.
I very much doubt this is a mistake or wrong, he just didn't bother to research or talk to anybody.
But this is the culture now, shit all over kernel devs as a default. The fact there are literal kernel maintainers who contribute to this, self-appointed hectored martyrs who act as if lashing out publicly is necessary because the kernel is so so mean, is very disappointing.
But that's the culture we live in these days, sucks really.
This guy is just embarrassing himself.

2023-11-04 07:22:43

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@npub1cm7…32y8 yes similar to how critical looking ahead to improvements in GUP/vma_merge() is

2023-11-04 06:58:37

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@npub1cm7…32y8 it's kind of wild how much printk stuff can hold things up

2023-10-21 10:21:38

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@npub1cm7…32y8 Yeah it might be tricky to 100% cover all cases and arches though, then again distros do tend to do their own thing for this quite often.
All a bit of a mess, in reality we should probably have a kernel mechanism to identify stuff that's needed for kernel module builds and stuff that isn't.
But official position is and always has been as I gather that technically you need all the source to build modules.
BTW I've not touched that script for yeeeears so not sure if currently working :>)

2023-10-21 08:53:58

I made a bunch of kernel scripts to make life easier working with configuring/building/running a kernel in qemu etc.
They're a bit arch-specific and rough but in case anybody might find them useful :)
https://github.com/lorenzo-stoakes/kernel-scripts

2023-10-21 07:33:13

You buy cases and covers to avoid Linus Clawvalds' fur getting all over your mid life-crisis synth stuff and then he does this.
He's played me for an absolute fool
https://social.kernel.org/media/c1038cd91e2c3e9a3bb5f7775be3ba4ca1e520abe20c291395a8b3e2ebb2e6c9.png

2023-10-21 07:30:55

To counter with some POSITIVITY:
Of the various OSS communities I've engaged with, kernel/mm has been the most welcoming and open to accepting contribs from a hobbyist like me.
You can see that in the past I've contributed (small amounts but still not nothing) to various projects - https://ljs.io/old_patches
Go always had a culture of 'you are peons we in the core team are gods', I noticed it even a decade ago and it was hugely off-putting.
Chromium felt like a good project to contribute to, though I doubt I could have done anything significant unless I was on core team.
But with the kernel, yes there are drawbacks and issues and problems, not everybody is nice all the time, yada yada yada.
But if I can justify a patch set and show that I have the talent to do it, modulo some politics, I can get it in.
I am treated as an equal, I discuss things with people at all different levels on a sensible, technical basis despite being a minor nobody hobbyist.
It's really incredible if you think about it, and I'm very grateful it exists.
YES many things could be improved. But it's still an incredible project. And that's probably a large part of why the kernel patches page on my website is dominated by it - https://ljs.io/patches *
*Obviously a big interest in the kernel and mm is another part of that but still :)

2023-10-03 09:13:53

As interesting a technology as bpf is, I really do worry that some aspects of it are just a way of working around the GPL and exfiltrating things from the kernel.
It is potentially (very!) useful to be able to hook into things, but when you get to the point of actually changing kernel behaviour will it not be tempting for companies to implement 'secret sauce' they don't have to contribute back?

2023-08-22 18:08:32

This fosstodon thing reminds me that those who go on the most about how considerate they are about others (+ how everybody _else_ is horrible) are so often the ones doing the most harm.
It's been a spot on tell for me for quite some time now... 'the lady doth protest too much methinks'.
The cure of course is humility, honesty and being willing to embarrass yourself by openly saying 'yeah ok I was wrong'.
Deeply powerful tools, very very rarely displayed, especially by those with even the smallest semblance of power...

2023-08-02 21:35:20

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@npub1zpu…qh6x Err dude haven't you heard of agile? That's not acceptable, your best has to be the same every day because reasons