Re: macppc system wedging under memory pressure

[Paul Ripke <stix%stix.id.au@localhost>]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2022 at 08:02:07PM -0400, Michael wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On Fri, 16 Sep 2022 19:41:44 +0100
> Mike Pumford <mpumford%mudcovered.org.uk@localhost> wrote:
> 
> > I've been running my build system ( an 8 core amd64 system with 16GB of 
> > RAM) with:
> > 
> > vm.filemax=10
> > vm.filemin=1
> > 
> > So its not just SMALL systems that need better tuning.
> > 
> > Before I set those I found that the system would prioritise file cache 
> > so much that any large process that ran for a long time would be forced 
> > to swap out so much that it would then take them ages to recover. In my 
> > case that was the jenkins process that was managing the build leading to 
> > lots of failed builds as the jenkins process fell apart. Setting those 
> > limits meant the file cache got evicted instead of the jenkins process.
> > 
> > I also found the same settings kept things like firefox from getting 
> > swapped out during builds as well.
> 
> I've seen the same thing on a sparc64 with 12GB RAM - firefox and claws
> would get swapped out while the buffer cache would stay at 8GB or more,
> with a couple cc1plus instances fighting over the remaining RAM.

Yup; my amd64 16GiB general purpose system tends to run some RAM heavy
apps (builds, java, firefox, blender, prusaslicer, ...), so I've had these
tweaks for many years:

vm.anonmin=50
vm.filemin=5
vm.filemax=15

Cheers,
-- 
Paul Ripke
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds
 discuss people."
-- Disputed: Often attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt. 1948.