Re: non-automated test failure report! :)

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

dholland-current%NetBSD.org@localhost (David Holland) writes:

>Not really, no. In most ordinary overload cases, it will grind to a
>halt swapping long before it actually OOMs.

I see OOMs a lot on Linux and hardly any of these follow
heavy swapping. Mostly it is a heavily loaded system and
something suddenly touching non-allocated memory
it never should have been granted.

>Like I said, it would perhaps be desirable to have a switch for
>pessmistic swap allocation. But there's no real reason to turn it on
>in practice.

Stability is a reason. But in Linux not even disabling
overcommittment and having swap larger than RAM helps to
eliminate the OOM killer.

>The "random" part is where you're going off the rails.

It is still "random" to some degree, used to be worse.

-- 
-- 
                                Michael van Elst
Internet: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."