In the page release paths, we can be sure that nobody will mess with our page->flags because the refcount has dropped to 0. So no need for atomic operations here. Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin Index: linux-2.6/include/linux/page-flags.h =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/include/linux/page-flags.h +++ linux-2.6/include/linux/page-flags.h @@ -247,10 +247,12 @@ extern void __mod_page_state_offset(unsi #define PageLRU(page) test_bit(PG_lru, &(page)->flags) #define SetPageLRU(page) set_bit(PG_lru, &(page)->flags) #define ClearPageLRU(page) clear_bit(PG_lru, &(page)->flags) +#define __ClearPageLRU(page) __clear_bit(PG_lru, &(page)->flags) #define PageActive(page) test_bit(PG_active, &(page)->flags) #define SetPageActive(page) set_bit(PG_active, &(page)->flags) #define ClearPageActive(page) clear_bit(PG_active, &(page)->flags) +#define __ClearPageActive(page) __clear_bit(PG_active, &(page)->flags) #define PageSlab(page) test_bit(PG_slab, &(page)->flags) #define SetPageSlab(page) set_bit(PG_slab, &(page)->flags) Index: linux-2.6/mm/swap.c =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/mm/swap.c +++ linux-2.6/mm/swap.c @@ -215,7 +215,7 @@ void fastcall __page_cache_release(struc struct zone *zone = page_zone(page); spin_lock_irqsave(&zone->lru_lock, flags); BUG_ON(!PageLRU(page)); - ClearPageLRU(page); + __ClearPageLRU(page); del_page_from_lru(zone, page); spin_unlock_irqrestore(&zone->lru_lock, flags); } @@ -268,7 +268,7 @@ void release_pages(struct page **pages, spin_lock_irq(&zone->lru_lock); } BUG_ON(!PageLRU(page)); - ClearPageLRU(page); + __ClearPageLRU(page); del_page_from_lru(zone, page); } Index: linux-2.6/include/linux/mm_inline.h =================================================================== --- linux-2.6.orig/include/linux/mm_inline.h +++ linux-2.6/include/linux/mm_inline.h @@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ del_page_from_lru(struct zone *zone, str { list_del(&page->lru); if (PageActive(page)) { - ClearPageActive(page); + __ClearPageActive(page); zone->nr_active--; } else { zone->nr_inactive--;