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To: hunghochak@netscape.net (Ho Chak Hung)
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: __alloc_pages: 4-order allocation failed
In-Reply-To: <6586AA62.338A01A4.0F76C228@netscape.net>
From: Jes Sorensen <jes@sunsite.dk>
Date: 05 Jul 2001 23:25:10 +0200
In-Reply-To: hunghochak@netscape.net's message of "Mon, 02 Jul 2001 12:59:52 -0400"
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>>>>> "Ho" == Ho Chak Hung <hunghochak@netscape.net> writes:

Ho> Hi, I got the error __alloc_pages: 4-order allocation failed in a
Ho> module that uses and frees a lot of pages.  Basically, I am trying
Ho> implement a page cache for the module. First, I keep allocating
Ho> pages using page_cache_alloc() until it fails, then I free a whole
Ho> bunch of pages using freepages((unsigned long)page_address(page))

Ho> Would anyone please give me some advice about how to solve this
Ho> problem?  Thanks a lot.

You ran out of memory, ie. there were no more free blocks of 16
consecutive pages available in the system. This is what happens on a
system with little memory or which is loaded with memory intensive
applications.

Jes