Public bug reported:

If a single program starts misbehaving (because of an error) and
suddenly eating up a lot of memory, the whole system becomes
unresponsive and you won't even be able to open a terminal, or switch to
a virtual terminal (ctrl+alt+f1) and kill the offending process.

It's absolutely unacceptable that the whole system can so easily stall into an 
unrecoverable state where the only option is a hardware shut down, just because 
of ONE misbehaving process (no matter whether faulty or malicious). You easily 
find yourself in this ridiculous and enraging situation:
- you perfectly know what program is eating up all memory and hogging the 
system (or you have just a couple of candidates and could easily figure out by 
running "top")
- you perfectly know what to do to restore normal behavior: open a terminal, ps 
to find out the process id, and kill it. 3 easy steps
- you can't do any of that because the system won't even respond to keystrokes 
and mouse clicks. Not even ctrl+alt+f1 to switch to virtual terminal works. You 
have no chance to run any command.

The system should stop allocating the memory that process asks, or at least 
always keep in physical memory the essential processes that are needed to do 
the necessary tasks rescue the system from such a situation: open a terminal 
(or at least switch to a virtual console) and run commands.
Also, responsiveness to mouse and keyboard should ALWAYS have the topmost 
priority, no matter what cpu-intensive or i/o-intensive task is being performed.

An operating system that becomes unworkable just because of one single
program's fault, is simply failing to do its most basic job.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: linux-image-3.13.0-29-generic 3.13.0-29.53
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-29.53-generic 3.13.11.2
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0:  teo        2155 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Tue Jun 10 19:55:17 2014
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=ff7e702a-a05a-47fd-8c14-551e81f9e9e3
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (242 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
MachineType: Acer Aspire V3-571G
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-29-generic.efi.signed 
root=UUID=5830b30e-69e8-4bb4-8a2b-bc2b43c7414a ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.13.0-29-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.13.0-29-generic  N/A
 linux-firmware                             1.127.2
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-05-24 (17 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 10/15/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: Acer
dmi.bios.version: V2.07
dmi.board.asset.tag: Type2 - Board Asset Tag
dmi.board.name: VA50_HC_CR
dmi.board.vendor: Acer
dmi.board.version: Type2 - Board Version
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Acer
dmi.chassis.version: V2.07
dmi.modalias: 
dmi:bvnAcer:bvrV2.07:bd10/15/2012:svnAcer:pnAspireV3-571G:pvrV2.07:rvnAcer:rnVA50_HC_CR:rvrType2-BoardVersion:cvnAcer:ct10:cvrV2.07:
dmi.product.name: Aspire V3-571G
dmi.product.version: V2.07
dmi.sys.vendor: Acer

** Affects: linux (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug trusty

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1328632

Title:
  whole system can unrecoverably stall just because of a single
  misbehaving program that eats up too much memory (causing trashing)

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