From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from psmtp.com (na3sys010amx167.postini.com [74.125.245.167]) by kanga.kvack.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 866156B13F0 for ; Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:17:46 -0500 (EST) Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:17:42 +0000 From: Mel Gorman Subject: Re: [Bug 42578] Kernel crash "Out of memory error by X" when using NTFS file system on external USB Hard drive Message-ID: <20120214121742.GJ17917@csn.ul.ie> References: <201201180922.q0I9MCYl032623@bugzilla.kernel.org> <20120119122448.1cce6e76.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20120210163748.GR5796@csn.ul.ie> <4F354D51.7020408@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-15 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4F354D51.7020408@redhat.com> Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org List-ID: To: Rik van Riel Cc: Andrew Morton , linux-mm@kvack.org, bugzilla-daemon@bugzilla.kernel.org, Stuart Foster , Johannes Weiner On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 12:01:05PM -0500, Rik van Riel wrote: > On 02/10/2012 11:37 AM, Mel Gorman wrote: > >On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:24:48PM -0800, Andrew Morton wrote: > > >>I think it is was always wrong that we only strip buffer_heads when > >>moving pages to the inactive list. What happens if those 600MB of > >>buffer_heads are all attached to inactive pages? > >> > > > >I wondered the same thing myself. With some use-once logic, there is > >no guarantee that they even get promoted to the active list in the > >first place. It's "always" been like this but we've changed how pages gets > >promoted quite a bit and this use case could have been easily missed. > > It may be possible to also strip the buffer heads from > pages when they are moved to the active list, in > activate_page(). > It'd be possible but is that really the right thing to do? I am thinking about when we call mark_page_accessed via touch_buffer, __find_get_block etc. In those paths, is it not implied the buffer_heads are in active use and releasing them would be counter-productive? -- Mel Gorman SUSE Labs -- 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-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: email@kvack.org