Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:31:08 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:30:59 -0500 Received: from clev-max5-cs-43.dial.bright.net ([209.143.46.237]:19981 "EHLO skylab.winds.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:30:44 -0500 Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 19:31:51 -0500 (EST) From: Byron Stanoszek To: Subject: Memory-related hangup (2.4.2-ac3) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Is there a reason why the kernel appears to hang temporarily for 3-5 minutes under this circumstance: gandalf:~> free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 126700 125024 1676 0 964 61640 -/+ buffers/cache: 62420 64280 Swap: 97648 97648 0 The system seems to favor the cache, but leaves no room for processes to use the remaining 64MB of ram. This happened while running netscape after viewing a couple of pages with a lot of images on them. Older kernels would happily allow processes to eat up cache space when memory was low. In fact, I used to be able to use 32MB of swap without any problems (even when netscape had more memory allocated to it than this now). Lately with 2.4 kernels I had to add another 64MB swap file to the existing 32, and the performance seems no different than without it, when compared to the old way of letting netscape just use all 125MB if it wants to (and sacrifice cached files, which aren't important in this case). Is there a setting I can control to force the kernel to give up cache when memory is low without hanging the machine? I personally don't think 50% process memory + 50% cache is an ideal solution--especially when running stuff that really wants >= 150MB (RAM + swap). Actually I'd prefer having cache use half the remaining RAM not taken up by processes, instead of half the total RAM on the system. Any suggestions? Regards, Byron -- Byron Stanoszek Ph: (330) 644-3059 Systems Programmer Fax: (330) 644-8110 Commercial Timesharing Inc. Email: byron@comtime.com - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/