[Bug 21308] New: Trashing hell

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Ubuntu | linux

           Summary: Trashing hell
           Product: Ubuntu
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: i386
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: linux
        AssignedTo: ben.collins at ubuntu.com
        ReportedBy: olau at cs.aau.dk
         QAContact: kernel-bugs at lists.ubuntu.com


Yesterday I clicked a torrent link in Epiphany which for some reason made one of
the desktop applications eat a lot of memory. So the machine suddenly froze and
started trashing. I waited about 10 minutes, then gave up, pressed the power
button and left. When I got back this morning the machine had left swap hell,
noticed the power button press and turned itself off.

This made me think that perhaps it would be a good idea to somehow fix the
kernel so that it kills a leaking application _before_ having spent more than 10
minutes with the desktop in a totally frozen state. IMHO freezing everything for
more than a few seconds does not make any sense on a desktop machine. It might
be enough to set the ulimit settings to something sensible.

I'm experiencing this on a fully upgraded Breezy Badger, the kernel seems to be
2.6.12-10-686.

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