Gradual VM-related freeze in 2.4.16,17-pre2 !

[Cyrille Chepelov <cyrille@chepelov.org>]

Hi folks,

I've converted yesterday my router, which until now had been happily running
ext2+2.4.13-pre2 on 8 MB of RAM + 200 MB of swap, to the ext3 + 2.4.16 (and
2.4.17-pre2) combinations (still eight megs of RAM, unfortunately 8-bit
SIMMs ain't cheap nowadays).

Now, as soon as the system gets some use (inetd kicks exim in, one ssh
attempt, etc.), most processes go freeze themselves into 
  <shrink_caches +57/80>
I can very temporarily regain some control over the system by SAKing it, but
eventually, everything userland is frozen up (packets still get routed, but
after a while I get a load of netfilter-related messages questioning Rusty's
sanity, which I'm willing to ignore as long as the VM is misbehaving).

Going a little backwards, to 2.4.13-ac8 (of course) solves the problem (but
incidentally, the interactive feel is much worse than what 2.4.16 gives 
before it freezes).

What can I do to further isolate the problem ? 

Thanks for any help.
	
	-- Cyrille

-- 
Grumpf.