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Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 15:01:19 +0100
From: Andrea Arcangeli <andrea@suse.de>
To: Abraham vd Merwe <abraham@2d3d.co.za>,
        Linux Kernel Development <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: 2.4.16 & OOM killer screw up (fwd)
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In-Reply-To: <20011211155922.B1863@crystal.2d3d.co.za>; from abraham@2d3d.co.za on Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 03:59:22PM +0200
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On Tue, Dec 11, 2001 at 03:59:22PM +0200, Abraham vd Merwe wrote:
> Hi Andrea!
> 
> > > > > In my swapless testing, I burnt HUGE amounts of CPU in flush_tlb_others().
> > > > > So we're madly trying to swap pages out and finding that there's no swap
> > > > > space.  I beleive that when we find there's no swap left we should move
> > > > > the page onto the active list so we don't keep rescanning it pointlessly.
> > > > 
> > > > yes, however I think the swap-flood with no swap isn't a very
> > > > interesting case to optimize.
> > > 
> > > Running swapless is a valid configuration, and the kernel is doing
> > 
> > I'm not saying it's not valid or non interesting.
> > 
> > It's the mix "I'm running out of memory and I'm swapless" that is the
> > case not interesting to optimize.
> > 
> > If you're swapless it means you've enough memory and that you're not
> > running out of swap. Otherwise _you_ (not the kernel) are wrong not
> > having swap.
> 
> The problem is that your VM is unnecesarily eating up memory and then wants
> swap. That is unacceptable. Having 90% of your memory in buffers/cache and
> then the OOM killer kicks in because nothing is free is what we're moaning
> about.

Dear, Abraham please apply this patch:

	ftp://ftp.us.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/andrea/kernels/v2.4/2.4.17pre4aa1.bz2

on top of a 2.4.17pre4 and then recompile, try again and send me a
bugreport if you can reproduce. thanks,

Andrea
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