Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751113AbWC1D7O (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:59:14 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750972AbWC1D7K (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:59:10 -0500 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:53226 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750950AbWC1D7J (ORCPT ); Mon, 27 Mar 2006 22:59:09 -0500 Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:59:05 -0800 From: Andrew Morton To: Lee Revell Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: OOM kills if swappiness set to 0, swap storms otherwise Message-Id: <20060327195905.7f666cb5.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <1143510828.1792.353.camel@mindpipe> References: <1143510828.1792.353.camel@mindpipe> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 1.0.4 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3346 Lines: 57 Lee Revell wrote: > > I am simply trying to run a Gnome desktop (Gnome 2.14, Evolution, > Firefox, gtk-gnutella usually open) without swapping or getting OOM > killed. > > I have to set the swappiness to 0 or else I get swap storms when simply > browsing the web and reading my mail. I think this is insane as I have > 512MB of RAM. It seems as if the kernel will OOM kill firefox rather > than shrink the file cache! No, there is little pagecache left. > What is the problem here? Is the modern Linux desktop really too > bloated to run in half a gig of RAM, or is the kernel overzealous with > its OOM killing? Looks like it. > ... > > rlrevell@mindpipe:~$ vmstat 1 > procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- ----cpu---- > r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy id wa > 2 0 248992 5612 4072 75268 3 2 41 49 12 33 82 4 14 1 > 0 0 248992 5364 4084 75300 0 0 0 128 1273 640 34 3 63 0 > 0 0 248992 5356 4084 75464 0 0 0 0 1257 611 23 4 73 0 > 0 0 248992 5356 4084 75496 0 0 0 0 1292 635 21 2 77 0 > 0 0 248992 5356 4084 75532 0 0 0 0 1277 599 22 3 75 0 > 0 0 248992 5356 4084 75532 0 0 0 0 1270 610 23 2 75 0 > 1 0 248992 5232 4092 75564 0 0 0 200 1274 596 21 2 77 0 > 0 0 248992 5232 4092 75564 0 0 0 0 1280 648 22 2 76 0 > 0 0 248992 5108 4092 75696 0 0 0 0 1296 621 21 4 75 0 70-odd MB in pagecache. Probably a lot of this is mmapped into process pagetables and by setting swappiness==0 you've basically told the kernel that this memory is to be preserved. > rlrevell 1792 4.1 37.9 320340 166724 ? Sl Mar21 353:33 evolution --component=mail > rlrevell 2298 9.2 18.9 200556 83112 ? Sl 15:16 30:55 /usr/lib/firefox/firefox-bin -a firefox > rlrevell 1794 0.0 2.1 92704 9344 ? Sl Mar21 0:47 /usr/lib/evolution/evolution-data-server-1.6 --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_DataServer_InterfaceCheck --oaf-ior-fd=41 > rlrevell 1805 0.0 0.6 65236 2740 ? Sl Mar21 0:06 /usr/lib/evolution/2.6/evolution-alarm-notify --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Calendar_AlarmNotify_Factory:2.6 --oaf-ior-fd=43 > root 2295 70.3 4.5 58160 19908 tty7 Ss+ Mar18 9207:34 /usr/bin/X :0 -br -audit 0 -auth /var/lib/gdm/:0.Xauth -nolisten tcp vt7 > rlrevell 2759 0.0 1.0 57716 4832 ? Ssl Mar18 2:48 nautilus --sm-config-prefix /nautilus-kFkhxG/ --sm-client-id 106281f446000113283283500000043730002 --screen 0 --no-default-window > rlrevell 2749 0.0 0.5 33720 2404 ? Sl Mar18 3:09 /usr/lib/control-center/gnome-settings-daemon --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_SettingsDaemon --oaf-ior-fd=25 Much porkiness. /proc/meminfo is very useful for obtaining a top-level view of where all the memory's gone to. I'd tentatively say that your options are to put up with the swapping or find a new mail client. - 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/