From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:01:46 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:01:36 -0400 Received: from 64-42-29-14.atgi.net ([64.42.29.14]:37136 "HELO mail.clouddancer.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:01:24 -0400 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: VM nuisance In-Reply-To: <9l5v9a$ha9$1@ns1.clouddancer.com> In-Reply-To: <9l5v9a$ha9$1@ns1.clouddancer.com> Reply-To: klink@clouddancer.com Message-Id: <20010813000136.8BC4A78628@mail.clouddancer.com> Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 17:01:36 -0700 (PDT) From: klink@clouddancer.com (Colonel) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In clouddancer.list.kernel, you wrote: > >> No. The problem is that whenever I change something to >> the OOM killer I get flamed. >> >> Both by the people for whom the OOM killer kicks in too >> early and by the people for whom the OOM killer now doesn't >> kick in. >> >> I haven't got the faintest idea how to come up with an OOM >> killer which does the right thing for everybody. > >How about adding some sort of per-process priority (i.e. a la nice) which >would determine the order in which they would be OOMed? Then we could >safely run X with a kigh KillMe and Netscape with an even higher KillMe >and we would probably avoid the something useing too much memory let's >kill root's shell... > >[i.e. if a lower KillMe proc runs out of memory we kill off the process >with the highest KillMe using most mem and can safely give this mem to the >proc which just ran out] Ah, so you kill X because of the high KillMe you've assigned? I can see that this idea quickly leads to dependecies and their problems (if I kill X, I therefore have killed all Netscapes too... but if I kill a dhcp, without killing Netscape first, netscape is useless ... blah blah blah). If there is insufficient memory for a process, tell it to sit on it and spin, especially since : "I haven't got the faintest idea..." Stop trying to make up for the sysadmin bozo. -- Windows 2001: "I'm sorry Dave ... I'm afraid I can't do that."