From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jul 13 8:11:34 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from bubba.whistle.com (s205m7.whistle.com [207.76.205.7]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7DB21533A for ; Tue, 13 Jul 1999 08:11:31 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from archie@whistle.com) Received: (from archie@localhost) by bubba.whistle.com (8.9.2/8.9.2) id SAA39852; Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:54:51 -0700 (PDT) From: Archie Cobbs Message-Id: <199907120154.SAA39852@bubba.whistle.com> Subject: Re: Replacement for grep(1) (part 2) In-Reply-To: <19990712022424.A1390@oaktree.co.uk> from Jon Ribbens at "Jul 12, 99 02:24:24 am" To: jon@oaktree.co.uk (Jon Ribbens) Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:54:51 -0700 (PDT) Cc: dcs@newsguy.com, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, tech-userlevel@netbsd.org, tech@openbsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL38 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Jon Ribbens writes: > > Because memory (as in *real* memory, either RAM or swap) is > > allocated on-demand. So you can allocate any amount of virtual > > memory that the system can possibly provide you, even though you'll > > run out of memory much earlier, because other resources are also > > consuming it. > > Yuck. That's a complete abomination. What's the point of it? It's turning > an out-of-memory situation from an easily-detected recoverable temporary > resource shortage which can be worked-around or waited out, into an > unrecoverable fatal error. Do a significant number of programs really > request memory which they then proceed not to use? See the various threads from years past regarding the overcommit debate. In short, it depends on your application(s) which is better.. By the way, is there a sysctl that controls this behavior now? There was talk of adding it before.. -Archie ___________________________________________________________________________ Archie Cobbs * Whistle Communications, Inc. * http://www.whistle.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message