On Monday, December 9, 2002, at 06:40  pm, Gary Thorpe wrote:
> But this is the problem: the application can check the return value of
> malloc() but even if it succeeds, it may be killed later on if the
> system runs out of memory. There is no "memory eater" as such: its just
> that the system has overcommitted itself. There is nothing an
> application can do about this particular problem. There is no way for
> an application to detect when memory is running out, since the system
> basically lies about it. What to do?

What to do? The kernel shouldn't overcommit. Or if it should (some
people think it's a good thing), it should be possible to turn it off.
This is what PR/12451 is about.