Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Out of Memory problem in Ultrix 2.2
Keywords: out of memory.
Message-ID: <1182@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 20 Mar 89 20:14:45 GMT
References: <3965@ece-csc.UUCP>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 12

>Why should it run out of memory if the os is a virtual memory  
>machine ? 

Well, you're the second person to ask that question recently....

"Virtual" memory ultimately has to be backed by "real" storage of some
sort, in most cases.  (We rule out the case of e.g. a system wherein a
page fault on some locations in the address space causes the page fault
handler to, for example, supply computed data rather than data from a
file.)  Therefore, if you run out of secondary storage to back up your
virtual memory, you run out of virtual memory.  You probably just ran
out of swap space.