Re: Out Of Memory in v. 2.1

Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH (allbery@kf8nh.apk.net)
Tue, 06 Oct 1998 17:18:20 -0300

In message <Pine.GSO.3.96.981006083726.24596A-100000@ultra5>, Shaun Wilson
writ
es:
+-----
| With the recent discussion of OOM and killers, why again was it a bad
| thing to just return a NULL upon a memory request that would otherwise
| fail? Isn't this by definition to way xalloc() operates?
+--->8

Because sometimes what's demanding memory isn't a userspace program. It's
the kernel, for its own purposes, and you can't point to any user process
and say "here's the culprit, kill it!". And failing the allocation will
cause far worse problems.

-- 
brandon s. allbery	[os/2][linux][solaris][japh]	 allbery@kf8nh.apk.net
system administrator	     [WAY too many hats]	   allbery@ece.cmu.edu
electrical and computer engineering					 KF8NH
carnegie mellon university






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