Linus Torvalds's first LLM-assisted patch series
At the recently concluded Maintainers Summit , Linus Torvalds said that he had been using a large language model to work on a patch series addressing a longstanding problem; he has now posted that series for review . The fairly short series of ten patches basically enhances folio lookup by noticing when folios are hot, and setting a "delay releasing this folio until after a RCU period", and then…
Linus Torvalds recently unveiled a patch series for review at the Maintainers Summit, utilizing a large language model to address an ongoing issue. The series consists of ten patches that significantly improve folio lookup by recognizing when folios are frequently accessed. By delaying the release of these frequently accessed folios until after an RCU (Read-Copy-Update) period, the patches ensure that both the folio lookup process and the actual folio data accesses are carried out under RCU protection.
This approach eliminates the need for reference counting in the fast path, allowing data to be read directly from the folio in an RCU-protected region when user copies don't trigger page faults. As a result, a read() heavy benchmark experienced an order-of-magnitude speedup. However, the code review has already detected a race condition within the code, necessitating further work to resolve the issue.
Written by urgent.news from LWN's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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