if (lruvec->file_cost + lruvec->anon_cost > lrusize / 4) { lruvec->file_cost /= 2; lruvec->anon_cost /= 2; }
It is a configuration policy. The policy here is to adjust the cost of current page. The cost means the overhead for kernel to operate the page if the page is swapped out. Kernel adopts a decay policy. Specifically, if current cost is greater than lrusize/4, its cost will be divided by 2. If kernel has no this policy, after a long-term running, the cost of each page is very high. Kernel might mistakenly reserve pages which are frequently visited long time ago but are inactive currently. It might cause performance degradation. The value (lrusize/4) here has a trade-off between performance and sensitivity. For example, if the value is too small, kernel will frequently adjust the priority of each page, resulting in process's performance degradation. If the value is too large, kernel might be misleaded by historical data, causing wrongly swapping currently popular pages and further performance degradation.