pre-patch-2.0.31-7 had no problems doing badblocks, while
pre-patch-2.0.31-6 produced "Couldn't get a free page" and was
unreachable over the network (no response to pings) for 10-20 sec.
Interactive performance was sluggish throughout badblocks run with
either kernel.
I was running "badblocks -vw /dev/hdc1 1177312"; the net-freeze would
happen just before the "Writing pattern 0x55555555: done" phase would
print "done". The free memory would drop to about 500k and then I'd
get the freeze. Ten seconds later all was well.
64mb ram, 64mb swap that was barely used. No other problems with a
kernel since stock 2.0.30 (but I ran badblocks for the first time
today).
-- Pete Harlan pete@mymenus.com