Bug#1759: running out of swap causes deadlock

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Package: source
Version: 1.2.13

To reproduce: do lots of things that need lots of swap, when you
haven't got enough.

Effect: system locks up totally, with only an insignificant amount
of disk activity.

Thrashing badly I could understand (but wouldn't like).  Randomly
killing processes I could understand, and might at least allow *some*
of the system to come down cleanly.

As it is, you have to hit the reset switch.

This is a known problem with Linux in general.  I just thought I'd
report it here as we're supposed to be able to have the package
maintainer chase up the upstream maintainer - linux-kernel in this
case.  Usually discussions of this on linux-kernel produce heat but no
light.

Ian.