Kairui Song’s MGLRU-FG patches add frequency-guided promotion to Linux’s Multi-Gen LRU and deliver 10–40% gains depending on workload, peaking at 76% under zRAM. The series is still RFC, but the results on MongoDB, Chromium and kernel builds make it worth tracking closely.

Two optimizations merged into the Linux 7.3 merge window cut memory-management lock contention: the worst-case anon_vma lock hold time drops from 705 ms to 1.67 ms, and the zsmalloc path speeds up by as much as 1.83× on modest hardware. Teams running JVMs, databases or KSM under memory pressure get a direct latency win just from upgrading.

Linux 7.3’s merge window opened in mid-August 2026 with 1,250 memory-management patches, a feature-complete sched_ext and initial support for AMD UALink and the Apple M3. Admins under memory pressure have two concrete fixes — rmap_walk_ksm and zsmalloc — to plan for before the expected October 2026 release.