Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Tue, 10 Oct 2000 10:28:02 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] VM fix for 2.4.0-test9 & OOM handler |
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On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Rogier Wolff wrote: > > So if Netscape can "pump" 40 extra megabytes of memory out of X, this > can be exploited. > > Now we're back to the point that a heuristic can never be right all > the time......
I agree. In fact, we never left that.
Nothing is perfect.
In fact, a lot of engineering is _recognizing_ that you can never achieve "perfect", and you're much better off not even trying - and having a simple system that is "good enough".
This is the old adage of "perfect is the enemy of good" - trying too hard is actually _detrimental_ in 99% of all cases. We should have simple heuristics that work most of the time, instead of trying to cajole a complex system like X to help us do some complicated resource management system.
Complexity will just result in the OOM killer failing in surprising ways.
A simple heuristic will mean that the OOM killer will still fail, but at least it won't be be in subtle and surprising ways.
Linus
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