{"slug": "earlyoom", "name": "earlyoom", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.885, "rising": 3.0, "first": "2026-08-18", "latest": "2026-09-11", "why": "Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom", "official_url": "https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["earlyoom", "EarlyOOM"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 794486080, "item_id": 49655380, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49655380", "by": "negrel", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend using the earlyoom if you want more aggresive oom kill", "excerpt": "OS are designed to fully exploit available resources, Linux tries its best before triggering an OOM kill. I recommend using the earlyoom if you want more aggresive oom kill: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom The README contains a lot of interesting information.", "context": "", "use_case": "preventing system freezes on OOM", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop making swap partitions\u2014use swap files instead"}, {"id": 792024688, "item_id": 49501543, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49501543", "by": "BoredomIsFun", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM", "excerpt": "> such as how poorly it handles running out of memory What is interesting, FreeBSD last time I used it, had far ,pre simple predictable kernel OOM killer. Anyway, I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM.", "context": "", "use_case": "handling out-of-memory on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Haiku R1/beta6 has been released"}, {"id": 789708784, "item_id": 49356799, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49356799", "by": "3eb7988a1663", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.", "excerpt": "Possibly not a solution for your use case, but I use earlyoom[0]. When memory crosses a threshold value, it will kill the worst offender. Has some knobs to tweak: what threshold level you want, which programs to keep safe, which to prioritize, etc. Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me. I use it when I am doing exploratory work and might materialize something too big. It has ", "context": "does exploratory work with large data", "use_case": "killing memory hogs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "3eb7988a1663", "context": "does exploratory work with large data", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49356799", "date": "2026-08-18"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["preventing system freezes on oom", "handling out-of-memory on linux", "killing memory hogs"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49618087", "title": "Stop making swap partitions\u2014use swap files instead", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49499867", "title": "Haiku R1/beta6 has been released", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49342719", "title": "Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 794486080, "item_id": 49655380, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49655380", "by": "negrel", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I recommend using the earlyoom if you want more aggresive oom kill", "excerpt": "OS are designed to fully exploit available resources, Linux tries its best before triggering an OOM kill. I recommend using the earlyoom if you want more aggresive oom kill: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom The README contains a lot of interesting information.", "context": "", "use_case": "preventing system freezes on OOM", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop making swap partitions\u2014use swap files instead"}, {"id": 792024688, "item_id": 49501543, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49501543", "by": "BoredomIsFun", "date": "2026-08-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM", "excerpt": "> such as how poorly it handles running out of memory What is interesting, FreeBSD last time I used it, had far ,pre simple predictable kernel OOM killer. Anyway, I always either switch off swap on Linux machines or install EarlyOOM.", "context": "", "use_case": "handling out-of-memory on Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Haiku R1/beta6 has been released"}, {"id": 789708784, "item_id": 49356799, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49356799", "by": "3eb7988a1663", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me.", "excerpt": "Possibly not a solution for your use case, but I use earlyoom[0]. When memory crosses a threshold value, it will kill the worst offender. Has some knobs to tweak: what threshold level you want, which programs to keep safe, which to prioritize, etc. Never had to touch the configuration, out of the box has been sufficient for me. I use it when I am doing exploratory work and might materialize something too big. It has ", "context": "does exploratory work with large data", "use_case": "killing memory hogs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Linux 7.3 improves performance when running out of vRAM"}]}