--- linux-2.4.5-pre6/mm/page_alloc.c.orig	Fri May 25 16:13:39 2001
+++ linux-2.4.5-pre6/mm/page_alloc.c	Fri May 25 16:35:50 2001
@@ -443,18 +428,26 @@
 		}
 		/*
 		 * When we arrive here, we are really tight on memory.
+		 * Since kswapd didn't succeed in freeing pages for us,
+		 * we try to help it.
+		 *
+		 * Single page allocs loop until the allocation succeeds.
+		 * Multi-page allocs can fail due to memory fragmentation;
+		 * in that case we bail out to prevent infinite loops and
+		 * hanging device drivers ...
 		 *
-		 * We try to free pages ourselves by:
-		 * 	- shrinking the i/d caches.
-		 * 	- reclaiming unused memory from the slab caches.
-		 * 	- swapping/syncing pages to disk (done by page_launder)
-		 * 	- moving clean pages from the inactive dirty list to
-		 * 	  the inactive clean list. (done by page_launder)
+		 * Another issue are GFP_BUFFER allocations; because they
+		 * do not have __GFP_IO set it's possible we cannot make
+		 * any progress freeing pages, in that case it's better
+		 * to give up than to deadlock the kernel looping here.
 		 */
 		if (gfp_mask & __GFP_WAIT) {
 			memory_pressure++;
-			try_to_free_pages(gfp_mask);
-			goto try_again;
+			if (!order || free_shortage()) {
+				int progress = try_to_free_pages(gfp_mask);
+				if (progress || gfp_mask & __GFP_IO)
+					goto try_again;
+			}
 		}
 	}