Debian freezes

[Stefan Monnier]

>>>>> "Jelle" == Jelle De Loecker <skerit-cB3pw4BdzzdBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.or> svn or cvs, or when I'm trying to compile something directly on my
> freerunner, it would just lock up. Freeze completely.

My guess is that it's just thrashing wildly.  The machine only
has 128MB.  If you fill this memory with "large" processes (or with
data on tmpfs filesystems), you can quickly get to the point where of
those 128MB only a handful of pages are actually swappable, so the
device ends up thrashing like mad.

If you add a swap area (of say 128MB), you should see much better
behavior since Linux will then be able to swap out pages of inactive
processes (and files in tmpfs) so as to keep more RAM for useful stuff.

Of course, if you really actively use more than 128MB at the same time,
no amount of swap space will save you.


        Stefan