>
> Since I upgraded from kernel 1.2.3 to 1.2.11, I noticed a bug
> with the way getty's (I use agetty) are handled. I run two Linux systems:
> One is a 386 with 5MB of RAM and NO monitor (my ax25 router and nfs print/
> fileserver) The other is a 486 notebook with 8MB of RAM (my "user" machine).
>
> Since the 386 is tight on memory and has no monitor, I disabled all getty's
> from running on it (not even on on the serial port).
>
> With kernel version 1.2.11 and beyond (I even tried 1.3.11), whenever NO
> gettys are running on the system, and one logs in via the ethernet network
> "init" ends up running all the time and grabs
> roughly 80-90% of system cpu time, even while the system is idle
> To make sure this wasn't related to something on my
> 386, I also disabled all gettys on my 486 and logged in via the network
> and noticed the same "init" behavior. This strange init behavior
> immediately goes away when I edit /etc/inittab, and kill -1 1 to start at
> least one getty.
>
> I definitely did NOT see this happen in kernel 1.2.3 and before, and I don't
> even know where to try to find the source. I can tell you what is not
> the problem. Here is a summary of some of the software differences between the
> two machines:
I note that in the inittab that is distributed with slackware a getty is run
on tty6 in run level 6 because there are problems with X-windows when no
getties are running. I would expect this to be related.
Why not just leave one getty running? I would think it would swap out
and not take *any* of the 5MB.
Steven P. Crain