From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261354AbUKICgG (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:36:06 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261349AbUKICgG (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:36:06 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:5862 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261354AbUKICgC (ORCPT ); Mon, 8 Nov 2004 21:36:02 -0500 Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2004 18:35:52 -0800 From: Andrew Morton To: Nick Piggin Cc: marcelo.tosatti@cyclades.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH] Remove OOM killer from try_to_free_pages / all_unreclaimable braindamage Message-Id: <20041108183552.7caccad1.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <419029D9.90506@cyberone.com.au> References: <20041105200118.GA20321@logos.cnet> <20041108162731.GE2336@logos.cnet> <20041108185546.GA3468@logos.cnet> <419029D9.90506@cyberone.com.au> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.7 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Nick Piggin wrote: > > I'm not sure... it could also be just be a fluke > due to chaotic effects in the mm, I suppose :| 2.6 scans less than 2.4 before declaring oom. I looked at the 2.4 implementation and thought "whoa, that's crazy - let's reduce it and see who complains". My three-year-old memory tells me it was reduced by 2x to 3x. We need to find testcases (dammit) and do the analysis. It could be that we're simply not scanning far enough.