Compilation using make -j freezes the system (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by jayaura@discuss.tchncs.de to c/debian@lemmy.ml

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Hi, I am building the Linux kernel, with the following make command to enable multi core compilation: make -j. This ends up freezing the system and eventually some applications get killed (I am using KDE). If I pass an argument to -j, then system compiles normally. However, full multi-core compilation is enabled when no argument is specified.

I am on Debian stable, kernel 6.1.0-13-amd64. Is there a way make system do full multi-core compilation without freezing the system?

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[-] jayaura@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 11 months ago

Using the exact number of cores I have as the argument (from /proc/cpuinfo) makes the compilation go smooth. Are you saying that without an argument, Make uses a very high default number that causes other processes to starve ? Nevertheless, kernel shouldnt allow such a situation as far as I understrand, and perhaps should be considered a bug in the kernel ?

[-] mlfh@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago

Without an argument, the -j option will start jobs with no limits - depending on the project, this could be thousands or tens of thousands of processes at once. The kernel will do its best to manage this, but when your interface is competing for cpu resources with 10,000 other cpu-intensive processes, it will appear frozen.

this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023

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