
Ubuntu 16.04: “Out of memory” errors after upgrade to 4.4.0-59 - ivank
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1655842
======
mrmondo
It's not just a bunch of people setting cm.swappieness to 0 is it? That
behaviour changed and now prevents going into swap /ever/ where it used to
mean go into swap as a last resort. Changing it to 1 fixes the issue and will
act like the old behaviour or only swapping as a last result.

Regardless, it's things like this why we never recommend people use Ubuntu -
years of poorly packaged and tested software. If you want a Debian based
system use Debian (and accept that there's now a lot of missing packages are
barely any proper SELinux or clustering support) or use RHEL/CentOS for a more
complete district and add in repos like epel and elrepo as required.

~~~
Pxtl
Yeah, Ubuntu still keeps running out of space in /boot by filling it w old
kernels in the default partition profile. A bug that I've been hitting since
about 2011.

In spite of their best efforts, it is not the "grandma friendly" quality
software it hoped to be.

~~~
amluto
My M.O. is:

    
    
      # apt-get update
      # aptitude full-upgrade
      # apt-get autoremove
    

Because as far as I can tell, apt-get sometimes fails to actually update
things, whereas aptitude can't autoremove. I'm sure there's a better way.

This is my major gripe with the dpkg ecosystem. There are (AFAICT) multiple
different tools to build dpgks and multiple different tools for updating your
system, and none of them are adequately documented nor support all use cases.

The Fedora ecosystem is better in this regard. Want to build an rpm? rpmbuild
is the only answer. Want to update the system? Use dnf. (Sadly, there's now
also PackageKit, and it's not quite isomorphic to dnf.)

~~~
rincebrain
AFAIK, the only supported way to build a deb is using dpkg-buildpackage, and
all the others just wrap it (unless we're talking about alien, but that's not
really "supported" going any direction).

Updating your system is all the same backend, and the Debian-alikes try to
tell you to only use one tool for cmdline (apt, now, which just takes the same
args as all the various apt-FOO commands did, all of which still work), and
one for the GUI (Synaptic, or wrappers around it, unless Ubuntu Software
Center has mutated a lot since I last looked).

IIRC they made a big deal about not installing aptitude (a popular alternate
text UI for apt-based systems) by default on Ubuntu _because_ they wanted to
standardize and fix any deficits, rather than working around them.

~~~
dotancohen
> they wanted to standardize and fix any deficits, rather than working around
> them.

That would work great if would they would take bugs reports seriously. In
practice, with Canonical I file a bug and ninety days later get an automated
message that the bug was closed due to inactivity.

~~~
rincebrain
That's an unfortunate pendulum swing cleaning up from their problem of yester-
year - namely, bugs sitting around _forever_ without any comment.

I noticed they changed that policy when I started getting comments on years-
old bugs of closed-obsolete. If they're now 90d expiring bugs, I'd _guess_
there's a bit that can be set for your account of whether you're a customer
paying for support, and that their support staff have a queue filter that
prioritizes those, and the rest get expired if nobody comments.

------
Cieplak
I stopped using Ubuntu after Amazon affiliate marketing showed up on the
desktop. I stopped using Arch after I read the source code for SystemD.
FreeBSD had quite a learning curve, but now it's on my laptops and is my
preferred server OS. I love DTrace. I love ZFS. I love pf. I love Jails. I
love ports, even though I generally use pkg. I love how easy it is to compile
a kernel. The FreeBSD handbook is awesome. All the JetBrains IDEs work well
with it. Hardware support is spotty and battery life is terrible. The BSD
license means you can incorporate FreeBSD into commercial products without
infecting yourself with the GPL.

~~~
dump12332
Small review of FreeBSD (I used it for a _very_ short period of time, so I
could be off the wall, though).

PREFACE

I've been using linux since the mid-90s. I know how to use the console, I
compiled kernels, played with the old xfree86 config files and all that back
in the day.

THE GOOD OF FreeBSD:

* Stable. It feels like a Unix out of the 80s. If you know what you're doing, it'll get the job done.

* man pages - Haven't used them much on Linux recently, felt that they were on the level of command --help, but on FreeBSD they felt like reading an authoritative blog post. Clear and concise.

* Cross-update versions - better than Debian. I personally never successfully had a seamless update between major releases, while FreeBSD did.

* No systemd (for now) - Unfortunately, systemd is taking over Linux because the largest block of user-space OSS programmers work for RedHat, which pushes for systemd. IIRC, the reason Debian went with systemd is because their maintainers simply have no resources to commit to remove it from gnome, etc.

However, as systemd grows in scope, FreeBSD will have to either play with it,
re-implement it in a normal way (which will let other Linux systems find a way
out), or stop being compatible with gtk, gnome, et al.

THE IRRELEVANT:

* BSD license - unless you're modifying and then distributing your modification, it doesn't matter.

* "Fragmantation" \- True, "FreeBSD" is less fragmented than "Linux", but "BSD" is more fragmented than "Linux" and "Debian" (or RedHat or Ubuntu or Arch...) is the same not fragmented as FreeBSD. Look at the Distro as the OS rather than the kernel.

And it doesn't matter -

If you're distributing OSS, then release it as POSIX and configure; make; make
install, and let the distro figure out packaging.

If you want to make life easier for the distro or releasing closed source
software, Linux (on the server) has an order of magnitude more users than
FreeBSD
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems#Public_servers_on_the_Internet)
), and if your program works with Debian, Ubuntu and RedHat/CentOS, you'll
probably cover the vast majority of users.

* Ports - Complicated to update, takes a long time (unless you have a fleet of servers), and can't be automated. And pkg is no better than apt.

* ZFS - ZFS is being ported to Linux, and btrfs may one day become stable. Either way, in a few years you'll be able to run the same ZFS on Linux as on FreeBSD.

THE GOOD IN LINUX

* Update - On Debian, you run apt upgrade && apt update. And it updates everything. And if you're on a stable release, updates are only bug-fixes, so (short of bugs/regressions), it can be automated.

FreeBSD, on the other hand, doesn't have enough maintainers to keep a stable
ports tree, so every update can break your setup. So every update has to be
taken care of manually.

* Security - Yes, I know that "experts" like the FreeBSD kernel better and everything, but the FreeBSD kernel has bugs of its own, so practically the key to secure both is keeping them up to date. And most of the time you're using ports, which isn't really run by FreeBSD and subject to their code review. So as Linux has an easier time updating (see above), it would be more secure.

* Directory structure - Why would you want a "blessed" vi? Why should a distro manager decide that /usr/bin/vi is (say) vim while neovim /usr/local/bin/nvi.

If anything, Linux is a lot more "Unixy" (I do know that FreeBSD is the
"traditional" way, but I think that Linux is a lot more Unixy) - Why shouldn't
I be able to write my own libc without having to maintain my own kernel? On
Linux I can replace glibc with muslc. Why can't I do the same on FreeBSD?

If anything, this is what everyone's complaining about systemd: "It's not
modular". Well, neither is the FreeBSD base. (Though in truth, FreeBSD seems
much more careful about basic software hygiene than systemd).

* Default software - Maybe I'm unique, but I kind of like bash. I don't see why it shouldn't be my default shell except "Well, if it didn't exist in the 80s, it won't exist now" (It could also be a licensing issue, but as a user I don't really care about that).

Others will scream "ShellShock". Well, yes. Though ShellShock shouldn't be a
security issue if you don't rely on userspace software to maintain security.

The OS should assume that software will break, and defend against it. So
things like pledge or SELinux are much more effective (and sustainable) than
treating userspace bugs as security holes.

Though in truth, I can't see why Apache should ever run bash honestly.

~~~
magic_quotes
> doesn't have enough maintainers to keep a stable ports tree, so every update
> can break your setup

You mean frozen package versions + backported security fixes as in stable
Debian branch? I think Debian is pretty unique in trying to support the whole
world.

Just to clarify, FreeBSD as a project only supports the base system. Ports
tree doesn't have any notion of releases and is intended to be always kept up
to date, akin to Gentoo portage or Arch linux packages.

~~~
sameaa12321-3
>You mean frozen package versions + backported security fixes as in stable
Debian branch? I think Debian is pretty unique in trying to support the whole
world.

>Just to clarify, FreeBSD as a project only supports the base system. Ports
tree doesn't have any notion of releases and is intended to be always kept up
to date, akin to Gentoo portage or Arch linux packages.

Yes. I understand the amount of work Debian admins put in (which is why I
stick with Debian, even though nixos/guix seems much more interesting), but
it's a strong advantage.

------
SkyRocknRoll
We are affected by this. Our elasticsearch process were getting killed even
though we set xmx to half of the ram. Now reverting the kernel.

~~~
hnarn
"I don't always upgrade my kernels, but when I do it's in production"

~~~
kevincox
You have to do it some time.

------
slitaz
Is the problem with just those users that changed the snappiness value to 0?

------
elementalcells
I finally switched my desktop to Xubuntu this week (from Win 10) after using
it happily on the laptop for months.

Stability is, unfortunately, not great. Games exit unexpectedly, Firefox tabs
frequently crash.

uname -r prints this exact kernel version so I assume I'm affected.

------
vivin
If you want something similar to Ubuntu, but something that is much more
stable, I highly recommend Linux Mint. I've been using it for about 4 years
now and it's a delight. Very stable and doesn't give me a lot of issues after
upgrades. Their upgrade-schedule and the upgrades itself are very
conservative.

They've based off a Ubuntu LTS, but I think they are starting to move away
from that.

~~~
SSTitan
Linux Mint has issues - [http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-the-linux-
mint-hack-...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-the-linux-mint-hack-is-
an-indicator-of-a-larger-problem/)

~~~
exDM69
Yes, a failure at safely distributing software is a pretty big failure when it
comes to distributions.

Mint, elementary and the other "user friendly" distros should focus on
creating the desktop and leave the distribution part to projects that have the
resources and the staff to maintain the infrastructure.

