Re: Is amd64 ready for the desktop?

[David Laight <david%l8s.co.uk@localhost>]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 04:57:33PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> 
> Joerg Sonnenberger <joerg%britannica.bec.de@localhost> writes:
> > On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 12:00:12PM -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> >> I think it would be best if ulimits were set at boot time based on
> >> system resource sizes, and that way no one will have to ever think
> >> about the problem again.
> >
> > So this is "Because Linux idiots can't program, we set limits so high
> > that it might just work"?
> 
> No, that's not what it is. It is "Ulimits are set to prevent resource
> starvation. Machines with more resources don't need the limits set so
> low, but clearly clearly machines with fewer resources want the limits
> lower, so perhaps it would be good to have the limits set based on
> available resources instead of an arbitrary number picked for all
> boxes of the same type whether they have 32M or 32G of memory."

Actually you should assume that large machines are going to be running
more programs and/or supporting more users.
So the per process limits should be fixed for the machine type, and
not, in any way, set based on the actual machine size.
(With the possible exception of the amount of physical memory a
process can lock down.)

The current situation where some of the 'hard' limits are set to the
kernel/system maximum values just lets non-privileged users lock the
system solid.

        David

-- 
David Laight: david%l8s.co.uk@localhost