very large ram disk problems -- swapping, caching, and why tmpfs and not ext2 or reiserfs

[Tony Nelson]

At 6:45 AM -0400 10/3/06, Matthew Kirk wrote:

>1.  When I fill my ext2 or reiserfs ram disk (but not tmpfs) to the 1 GB
>point, the system complains that it has insufficient memory, kills some
>processes, and hangs.  It responds to ping, but that's about it.  I have 5.5
>GB of memory still free, at that point, and I'm not running any of my own
>software.  Why does using ext2 or reiserfs result in insufficient memory
>when it appears I still have memory left, and why does tmpfs not suffer the
>same fate?

WAG: page tables?

This might be a good question for the LKML.


>2.  I understand, through the "grape vine" that a ram disk built with tmpfs
>can have its contents swapped.  I also understand this is not true of ext2
>or reiserfs.
 ...

That is my (weak) understanding.
-- 
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