> > > yes, the heuristic for determining when to start killing processes
> > > when no swap is available doesn't work so well when there's no swap
> > > configured.
> 
> I've never understood why a process that is behaving could randomly get
> killed.
> 
> Doesn't it make more sense to simply return ENOMEM to the process requesting
> memory, and let -it- deal with the problem?  The OS needs to keep reserved
> enough stack, etc, to make sure it remains consistent.

How do you return ENOMEM to userlevel when a page-fault encounters
no more memory, and no more swap space to trade with?  What you
imply is that you want a no-overcommit architecture. That requires
that copy-on-write must always assume that the write will happen,
and account for that consumption. Not a good mechanism for effective
use of resources...

/sjd