On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 04:25:36PM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > On Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:11:13 +0200 > Pavel Machek <pavel@xxxxxx> wrote: > > > On Sun 2012-09-09 15:40:55, David Rientjes wrote: > > > On Sun, 9 Sep 2012, Pavel Machek wrote: > > > > > > > On 3.6.0-rc2+, I tried to turn on the wireless, but got > > > > > > > > root@amd:~# ifconfig wlan0 10.0.0.6 up > > > > SIOCSIFFLAGS: Cannot allocate memory > > > > SIOCSIFFLAGS: Cannot allocate memory > > > > root@amd:~# > > > > > > > > It looks like it uses "a bit too big" allocations to allocate > > > > firmware...? Order five allocation.... > > > > > > > > Hmm... then I did "echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches" and now the > > > > network works. Is it VM problem that it failed to allocate memory when > > > > it was freeable? > > > > > > > > > > Do you have CONFIG_COMPACTION enabled? > > > > Yes: > > > > pavel@amd:/data/l/linux-good$ zgrep CONFIG_COMPACTION /proc/config.gz > > CONFIG_COMPACTION=y > > Asking for a 256k allocation is pretty crazy - this is an operating > system kernel, not a userspace application. > > I'm wondering if this is due to a recent change, but I'm having trouble > working out where the allocation call site is. iwlwifi/iwlegacy do such kind of allocation for ages, since iwlwifi driver inclusion in 2.6.24 (however firmware was smaller then). I can fix that in iwlegacy similar as Johannes did it in iwlwifi, but this actually seems to be allocator regression. We use GFP_KERNEL allocation, kernel can wait for free memory and/or swap out pages, I do not understand why this fail. Stanislaw -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>