Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 12:06:25 -0500 From: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> To: John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu>, Gary Palmer <gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The infamous dying daemons bug Message-ID: <v04011700b26e1fccb9c1@[128.113.24.47]> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9811101055580.8312-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu> References: <3636.910712627@gjp.erols.com>
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At 11:07 AM -0500 11/10/98, John Fieber wrote: >On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Gary Palmer wrote: > >> John Dyson added this warning a few months ago, and the times that >> I've seen it are when the machine *just* starts hitting swap space, >> and is no-where near running out. No offense to John, but I don't >> think that whatever algorythm he uses in generating that message >> is anywhere near to being right, and I wonder what peoples opinions >> about either hiding it behind bootverbose or removing it are? > > Even if the algorithm were right, the meaning of the message is > clear as mud. So it tells me 125MB. Okay. Um... 125MB? What > the heck am I supposed to do with that? Where did the number > come from? What does it mean? > > The message isn't useful unless it can be understood. Judging > from other people's comments, I'm not alone in being confused > by it. Presumably the message is there to give advance warning about the usage of swap. A message that says "Hey, you're out of swap" just seconds before the machine completely dies is not quite as useful as one that tries to give you more advance notice (such that you could think about adding more swap space next weekend). I like that idea, even if this particular implementation and the wording of the warning message could be improved upon... (on a mainframe OS I used to work on, the operating system would sometimes come out with "It's time to add another volume, methinks", which was enough to get people's attention without sounding like an emergency situation) --- Garance Alistair Drosehn = gad@eclipse.its.rpi.edu Senior Systems Programmer or drosih@rpi.edu Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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