Some questions about linux kernel.

From: Peter Zaitsev (pz@spylog.ru)
Date: Sat Mar 11 2000 - 05:14:13 EST


1) I've found the very simple thing - program which just hogs all memory by
running for(;;) t=malloc(4096); for example run under usual user with no
explicit memory limitations leads system to unusable state after all swap
space is finished.
Well. The kernel still works afterwards but many of inportant processes dies
and so remote mashine can't even be rebooted properly. The worst thing the
same program leads to nothing then run under solaris 2.6 for example - I
just get the message Out of memory for a.out and no process of other users
are affected. I've checked this on many distributions (RH 6.1,Slakware
7.0,Suse 6.3) with up to last kernel 2.2.14 - everythere I have the same
effect.
2) Linux has two parameters related to buffering. Buffers and cache. The
problem is I can't find anywhere the difference between them in any
documentation described good, better then just saying these are different
things. I do not understand why simetimes I got buffers are more than a
cache under havy file I/O and sometimes cache more than buffers. Can anyone
explain this or point me to good documentation.

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