Re:I've now disabled systemd-oomd on my Fedora desktops
by chlorion on Wednesday December 21, 2022 @06:02PM
(#34087552)
Chrome and Edge not functioning without overcommit is not the fault of the kernel though.
The browsers will allocate more memory than is physically available in the system but often not "touch" it. Without over-commit this causes an OOM situation and the kernel kills the browser, but that's what it's supposed to do when over-commit is disabled!
I believe some of these massive allocations are used for security purposes or somehow related to the chromium sandbox but I can't remember exactly what's going on. Some sanitizers like ASAN do something similar for detecting invalid memory accesses (and hence can't be used without over-commit either)!
The browsers will allocate more memory than is physically available in the system but often not "touch" it. Without over-commit this causes an OOM situation and the kernel kills the browser, but that's what it's supposed to do when over-commit is disabled!
I believe some of these massive allocations are used for security purposes or somehow related to the chromium sandbox but I can't remember exactly what's going on. Some sanitizers like ASAN do something similar for detecting invalid memory accesses (and hence can't be used without over-commit either)!