** Description changed: - 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. + 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. + 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'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. + 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.
-- Thrashing hell https://launchpad.net/bugs/27441 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
