From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: <20010323002752.A5650@win.tue.nl> Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2001 00:27:52 +0100 From: Guest section DW Subject: Re: [PATCH] Prevent OOM from killing init References: <20010322230041.A5598@win.tue.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: ; from Alan Cox on Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 10:52:09PM +0000 Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: Alan Cox Cc: Stephen Clouse , Rik van Riel , Patrick O'Rourke , linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 10:52:09PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote: > > You see, the bug is that malloc does not fail. This means that the > > decisions about what to do are not taken by the program that knows > > what it is doing, but by the kernel. > Even if malloc fails the situation is no different. Why do you say so? > You can do overcommit avoidance in Linux if you are bored enough to try it. Would you accept it as the default? Would Linus? (With disk I/O we are terribly conservative, using very cautious settings, and many people use hdparm to double or triple their disk speed. But for a few these optimistic settings cause data corruption, so we do not make it the default. Similarly I would be happy if the "no overcommit", "no OOM killer" situation was the default. The people who need a reliable system will leave it that way. The people who do not mind if some process is killed once in a while use vmparm or /proc/vm/overcommit or so to make Linux achieve more on average.) Andries -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux.eu.org/Linux-MM/