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-rw-r--r--Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt15
1 files changed, 10 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
index 79a797eb3e87..1fbd4eb7b64a 100644
--- a/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
+++ b/Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt
@@ -119,8 +119,11 @@ other appears as 0 when read.
dirty_background_ratio
-Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
-the background kernel flusher threads will start writing out dirty data.
+Contains, as a percentage of total available memory that contains free pages
+and reclaimable pages, the number of pages at which the background kernel
+flusher threads will start writing out dirty data.
+
+The total avaiable memory is not equal to total system memory.
==============================================================
@@ -151,9 +154,11 @@ interval will be written out next time a flusher thread wakes up.
dirty_ratio
-Contains, as a percentage of total system memory, the number of pages at which
-a process which is generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty
-data.
+Contains, as a percentage of total available memory that contains free pages
+and reclaimable pages, the number of pages at which a process which is
+generating disk writes will itself start writing out dirty data.
+
+The total avaiable memory is not equal to total system memory.
==============================================================