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From: Daniel Phillips <phillips@bonn-fries.net>
To: Benjamin LaHaise <bcrl@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC] Arch option to touch newly allocated pages
Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 00:14:15 +0100
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Cc: Jeff Dike <jdike@karaya.com>, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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On March 6, 2002 05:36 pm, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 04:24:17PM +0100, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> > On March 6, 2002 04:24 pm, Benjamin LaHaise wrote:
> > > On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 03:59:22PM +0100, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> > > > Suppose you have 512 MB memory and an equal amount of swap.  You start 8
> > > > umls with 64 MB each.  With your and Peter's suggestion, the system always
> > > > goes into swap.  Whereas if the memory is only allocated on demand it
> > > > probably doesn't.
> > > 
> > > As I said previously, going into swap is preferable over randomly killing 
> > > new tasks under heavy load.
> > 
> > Huh?  In the example I gave, you will never oom but with your suggestion, you
> > will always go needlessly go into swap.  I'm suprised that you and Peter are
> > aguing in favor of wasting resources.
> 
> I'm arguing in favour of predictable behaviour.  Stability and reliability 
> are more important than a bit of swap space.

That's the same argument that says memory overcommit should not be allowed.

-- 
Daniel
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