On Tue, 9 Jul 2019 06:24:56 -0400
fsmithred via Dng <dng@???> wrote:

> What I do when it starts to slow down is ctrl-alt-F2, log in and
> start killing programs. Thunderbird is usually on that kill list,
> because it takes a lot of ram, too. If I wait too long to do that, it
> freezes. At some point, even sysrq keys won't work.

I recalled a program which automatically kills tasks which are being
hogs, which is an extreme and not-recommended workaround. I couldn't
find it offhand, but I found other solutions out there which act like
that. In theory, a monitoring script could be made for this, and even
made smart enough prompt for action (with a timeout for automatic
action).


Also, would ulimit be helpful?

https://ss64.com/bash/ulimit.html