Virtual Memory: Improving User Experience

[Jesse Hammons <jessehammons@yahoo.com>]

I just read the interview with Rik about the Linux VM.  One
dissatisfaction that I've had with ever VM on every OS that I have
tried (NT, BSD, Linux, NeXTSTEP, Mac OS X, Solaris) is that there is no
way for the user to interrupt things.  For example, when I perform some
operation and that forces my system to go into swap-from-hell mode for
10 minutes, there is no way for me to interrupt the OS and say "hey,
give me a lists of tasks you are trying to perform and I will tell you
which ones to do now, which to do later, and which you can just cancel
(kill)".  The only thing I can do in this situation is reboot, since
the OS is swapping so hard that X isn't even processing events.

It sounds like the "OOM Killer" is working towards this goal.  Where
can I find more information on this topic?  Will it ever be possible to
keep a small program in pinned memory that can always come up and show
the user what is going on (and give a chance to kill processes)?

Please reply direct as I am not list enabled....

Thanks,
-Jesse

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