[maemo-developers] [maemo-developers] Re: [maemo-users] How does the device-self-reset work?

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

> You can disable the lifeguard.  You cannot disable the OOM killer,
> and I do not think you can disable the software watchdog.

OOM killer happens because Linux has (also on desktop) a memory usage
optimization called "overcommit".  AFAIK this can be disabled from /proc/,
then (even unused) allocations will fail when programs try to do them, not
afterwards when memory is really used and there's not enough of it.

If overcommit is disabled, probably more programs will abort()
(Glib used by Gtk for allocs will abort() the program if
allocations fail) or don't start at all.


	    - Eero