Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760166AbXJYT4R (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:56:17 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754754AbXJYT4D (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:56:03 -0400 Received: from proxima.lp0.eu ([85.158.45.36]:39897 "EHLO proxima.lp0.eu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754471AbXJYT4B (ORCPT ); Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:56:01 -0400 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=exim; d=fire.lp0.eu; h=Received:Message-ID:Date:From:User-Agent:MIME-Version:To:CC:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:X-Enigmail-Version:OpenPGP:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=Uco1ltISn8E/0dk8FWGlh9nStM5OhpbjbDfI9Sl8EK+CsUijEb66RnoYh5kNnhT3bc92kxSB9ZoYDBBt+/nZJUf4R5hB4gH1uuj0PbO9VXPE81rgdBjlpiLquLbMGOzO; Message-ID: <4720F4C9.9000908@simon.arlott.org.uk> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:55:53 +0100 From: Simon Arlott User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.0 (X11/20070326) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Richard Purdie CC: LKML Subject: Re: Linux machines dieing in swap storms References: <1193325641.5776.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <1193325641.5776.21.camel@localhost.localdomain> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.2 OpenPGP: id=89C93563 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1093 Lines: 24 On 25/10/07 16:20, Richard Purdie wrote: > This isn't a new problem. My mail server used to be running an ancient > 2.6.12 kernel and I upgraded it to 2.6.22.X in an effort to solve this > problem which no change. My desktop shows exactly the same kind of OOM > swap storm behaviour (2.6.20 based). > > I realise that tuning the OOM killer is a really tricky problem but > something needs improving as the current user experience is broken. > > I'm seriously tempted to add a "kill the process using the most memory" > key combination into SysRq which might let me save the desktop but won't > help with my remote server. I could also just disable swap I guess. I have no swap. If I accidentally start The GIMP and load a very large image, everything just freezes and I have to reboot - the OOM killer doesn't appear to care. -- Simon Arlott - 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/