CentOS - Sep 2004 - kernel question

An interesting bug in RHEL 3(which affects CentOS 3) has been 
bantered around for a while.  There are some kernel 
patches(beyond my scope right now) or some echo statements tht 
are used(this helped my situation).  The newest 2.4.x kernels 
have these patches incorporated.  Would centOS 3 go nuts if i 
installed the latest kernel from kernel.org?

<btw the issue is that the 2.4.xx kernels ahve a tendency to fill 
up ram with cache..which is normal.  The bug is that the kernel 
then refuses to rlease the cache and instead starts 
swapping...which i have noticed in my little install here.  What 
i did to fix it as a workaround(noted in the buzilla report here: 
   https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89226
is to send the following command at the command line: (echo 1 10 
10 >/proc/sys/vm/pagecache)  I have noticed this is another RH9 
server i ahve access to and will be trying it on that box too as 
well as my linux firewall.>




-- 
My "Foundation" verse:
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; 
and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou 
shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, 
and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

-- carpe ductum -- "Grab the tape"

William Warren wrote:
> An interesting bug in RHEL 3(which affects CentOS 3) has been 
> bantered around for a while.  There are some kernel 
> patches(beyond my scope right now) or some echo statements tht 
> are used(this helped my situation).
>    https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=89226

I don't have any direct feedback on Warren's [not excerpted] question 
about using other kernels, but I have some feedback on the echo statements 
that he mentions.

I had been noticing that memory-intensive apps such as Mozilla were taking 
a very long time to swap back in after having been idle overnight -- more 
than a couple of minutes, often, when I would switch desktops for the 
first time each day to the one where I keep Moz running, before the window
would refresh.

Scanning through the bugzilla report, I saw the kernel patch that changes
the vm.pagecache defaults.  So I executed

	echo "1 5 10" > /proc/sys/vm/pagecache

My applications are now MUCH more responsive; there's never a delay before 
the Mozilla window refreshes, and VMware works noticeably better.  If you
are running CentOS 3.1 or RHEL3, you might want to try this, even if you
aren't seeing serious problems with swapping.

This brings me to two questions:

(1) Is the aforementioned kernel patch already present in the CentOS-3.3
    kernels?

(2) (Somwhat OT) Is there an equivalent pagecache tweak for RedHat 9?  The
    /proc/sys/vm/pagecache "device" is not present in RH9.