The slab memory allocator changes for Linux 7.2 have been merged, bringing several performance optimizations. A key change defers freelist construction until after bulk allocation from a new slab, yielding 42–70% reduction in time-per-object in benchmarks with CONFIG_SLAB_FREELIST_RANDOM=n and 58–69% with it enabled. Another change batches the detach/reattach of partial slabs in the SLUB allocator, producing a 2–5% improvement in mmap() benchmarks. The pull request also adds support for allocation tokens as a compiler feature in LLVM Clang 22+, enabling smarter partitioning of kmalloc caches based on allocated object type.
199 Impressions