Re: Out of memory kernel death
david parsons (o.r.c@p.e.l.l.p.o.r.t.l.a.n.d.o.r.u.s)
8 May 1997 00:04:20 -0700
In article <linux.kernel.9705071343.AA14945@dcl.mit.edu>,
Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso@MIT.EDU> wrote:
> From: Rik van Riel <Rik.vanRiel@phil.ruu.nl>
> Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 15:24:43 +0200 (MET DST)
>
> I read this thread and linux does indead have this problem.
> I also read the FreeBSD sourcecode, and saw a (somewhat)
> elegant solution for this. If FreeBSD is out of memory, it
> looks through the processes and kills off the largest one.
> This should be doable in Linux too...
>
>The problem is that the largest process is often the X server. Often
>this will indeed free a lot of memory, but it's not necessarily the best
>thing to do...
Well, if the alternative comes down to either having a console session
die because of a lack of memory or having everything, including that
console session, come to a screeching stop as the kernel flails around
looking for memory, I'd think that losing the X server die would be
by far the better solution.
____
david parsons \bi/ orc@pell.chi.il.us
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