Re: Bus error in _very_ low memory in 2.2.1

Matti Aarnio (matti.aarnio@sonera.fi)
Mon, 8 Feb 1999 09:49:09 +0200 (EET)


> Hi,
>
> For my own enjoyment I've been playing around with 2.2.1 under _extremely_ low
> memory conditions. (LILO: linux single mem=1718k) The only kernel configuration
> options selected are ELF , E2FS, and basic IDE support. I do not even have
> /proc selected.
>
> One thing that I have noticed is that even after swapon -a has completed
> successfully and there is plenty of swap I get "Bus Errors" when executing
> simple commands like vi. Shouldn't these just be slow and not error out like
> that? I post this only in hopes that it might help someone track down a bug
> occuring in a more common configuration than 1.7M ;-). I don't seem to see
> these in a 2M configuration.

The SIGBUS is telling essentially that your kernel memory has
run out of non-swappable resources needed to construct page
tables for the started process. Start a bit more things
in your 2MB system, and you will see the thing there too.

> -Steve

/Matti Aarnio <matti.aarnio@sonera.fi> -- running with 0.5GB RAM ...

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