Post Syndicated from original https://lwn.net/Articles/932201/

The kernel developers try hard to avoid duplicating functionality in the
kernel, which is enough of a challenge to maintain as it is. So it has
often seemed out of character for the kernel to support three different
slab allocators (called SLAB, SLOB, and SLUB), all of which handle the
management of small memory allocations in similar ways. At the 2023 Linux Storage, Filesystem,
Memory-Management and BPF Summit, slab maintainer Vlastimil Babka
updated the group on progress toward the goal of reducing the number of
slab allocators in the kernel and gave an overview of what to expect in
that area.