From: H. Peter Anvin N9ITP (hpa@merle.acns.nwu.edu)
Date: 03/17/93


From: hpa@merle.acns.nwu.edu (H. Peter Anvin N9ITP)
Subject: Re: What happens when Linux runs out of memory? [was Thought: compressed libc ?]
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 20:54:08 GMT

In article <1o71vo$t2m@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> of comp.os.linux,
  s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz) writes:
> In article <1993Feb26.141303.10929@wam.umd.edu> joel@wam.umd.edu (Joel M. Hoffman) writes:
>
> > Also, I've noticed the seemingly interminable wait when Linux runs out
> > of memory. Perhaps a hot-key to tell the kernel that it's out of
> > memory would help until something better is implemented? It's a
> > kludge, I know, but it's better than rebooting. No?
>
> I'm still stuck to my old idea (and patching every new kernel with it)
> to bind the Secure Attention Key (now it is already in the kernel) to
> Ctrl-Alt-Del. Since rebooting via C-A-D is useless and dangerous, the
> use of this 'traditional' keystroke for killing a process family is
> IMHO a good replacement.
>

Not if you trap Ctrl-Alt-Del (such as the SysV init does) and have it
do a controlled reboot.

        /hpa

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