Prevent extended periods of thrashing
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
linux (Ubuntu) |
Won't Fix
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu) |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
Unassigned | ||
linux-source-2.6.22 (Ubuntu) |
Won't Fix
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
Two days ago I clicked a torrent link in Epiphany which for some reason made one of the desktop applications eat a lot of memory. So the machine suddenly froze and started trashing. I waited about 10 minutes, then gave up, pressed the power button and left. When I got back the next morning the machine had left swap hell, noticed the power button press and turned itself off.
This made me think that perhaps it would be a good idea to somehow do something to prevent having the kernel spend more than 10 minutes with the desktop in a totally frozen state. IMHO freezing everything for more than a few seconds does not make any sense on a desktop machine. It might be enough to set the ulimit settings to something sensible, e.g. so that no application can eat more than 90% of the RAM or more RAM than there will still be say 100 MB available for the desktop on the machine.
I'm experiencing this on a fully upgraded Breezy Badger, the kernel seems to be 2.6.12-10-686.
I previously reported this as bug #27392 for the kernel, but the maintainer rejected the notion that the kernel could do anything about it and suggested I filed a new bug. And yes, I realise that in some cases a default process limit will be wrong. I'm not arguing that everyone should have these settings forced down their throats, I'm arguing that the defaults are wrong. It is a lot easier to remove a protection if you need it than it is to protect the system yourself, and most people probably don't run real memory hogs like scientific simulations.
description: | updated |
Changed in linux-source-2.6.12: | |
assignee: | martin-bergner → nobody |
summary: |
- Thrashing hell + Prevent extended periods of thrashing |
Changed in linux (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Incomplete → New |
Changed in linux (Ubuntu): | |
importance: | Undecided → Medium |
status: | New → Triaged |
tags: | added: kernel-fs kernel-needs-review |
tags: | removed: kernel-candidate |
NB, the previous report on ubuntu's malone is bug 27392
https:/ /launchpad. net/distros/ ubuntu/ +source/ linux-source- 2.6.15/ +bug/27392