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Subject: Re: 2.4 kernel series and the oom_killer and
	/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory
From: Robert Love <rml@tech9.net>
To: Marc-Christian Petersen <m.c.p@gmx.net>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
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On Thu, 2002-08-22 at 11:19, Marc-Christian Petersen wrote:

> My question now: Why isn't it possible, if overcommit_memory is 0, to really 
> check if there is enough memory or not, and if NOT just to display a message 
> like "Not enough memory for execution. Aborted" ?

Because the overcommit checks in 2.4 stock are heuristic in nature -
they simple compare an estimate of committed memory against what you are
trying to allocate.

In 2.5 and 2.4-ac we have strict overcommit which couple accurate
accounting of the committed address space with stricter rules to prevent
overcommit.

	Robert Love

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