Hi!
On 18:08 Fri 17 Sep , Venkatram Tummala wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 3:23 PM, David Castillo Fuentes <
> david.castillo.fuentes@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> >
> > Some days back I tried to install Ubuntu 10.04 in my old Desktop which has
> > a processor AMD K6/2-450, but when I tried to do so, I got a Kernel Panic,
> > and the system reported that it was working under low memory conditions.
> >
>
> Most probably, total RAM on your system must have been too low. What happens
> in that condition is that kernel invokes the Out-of-Memory Killer (OOM)
> which selects a process/processes & shoots it in the face. As a result,
> things spiral out of control & may lead to a panic.
OOM should *not* lead to a panic. This is the reason why the oom-killer exists:
To kill processes so that the rest of the system can survive.
Maybe it has nothing to do with memory at all but there is a broken driver or
so for an old piece of hardware?
> You have a very limited
> control over the OOM killer & you cannot always predict which process it
> will select.
You have control an you can predict which process it will select. Take a look
at /proc/<pid>/oom_{score|adj} .
> It is not a problem with the ISO or a specific linux distro.
> What is the total RAM on your system
It should be possible to run a "bare" linux desktop on systems with 64MB+swap,
but X11 will use a lot of memory. Some big applications like firefox/ooffice
and window mamager like KDE/Gnome will be *very* slow or constantly trigger the
oom killer tough - not very fun to use. However without X11 (e.g. as a server),
you should be fine. Some embedded linux systems you can buy *today* come with
16MB. If the *installer* has a problem with your hardware, try to find out
whether there is a smaller installer or use a different (debian?) distribution,
which does not have these problems.
-Michi
--
programing a layer 3+4 network protocol for mesh networks
see http://michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com
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