Norman RAM problem

[Matthew Fluet]

> It could be since I know that in the early 2.4 line (which is what I am
> running: 2.4.2 although with Red Hat patches) there were real complaints about
> swapping.  Now Linux has ripped out the new VM and gone to an older one
> (although Alan Cox is keeping the newer one trying to get it fixed up).

Yeah, I know that people have been up in arms over the VM.  I think I'm
running 2.4.9; I upgraded to the most recent kernel that the
perfctr had a patch for.  

> Does the problem you saw always happen on self compiles or only some times?

Pretty much all the time recently.  Of course, I only notice it if I'm
trying to do something at the same time, and I often walk away while I'm
waiting for a compile to finish.

> In particular, if you just run it again right away (so memory is largely
> free) does it still happen?

I don't recall.  I'll check what happens when I do a stabilizing
self-compile, which does two self-compiles in a row.