0000004bb920] sys_read+0x34/0x60 [527319.461424] [0000000000406294] linux_sparc_syscall32+0x3c/0x40 The calltrace is significant: __do_page_cache_readahead allocates a number of pages with GFP_KERNEL, and hence it should have reclaimed sufficient memory to satisfy GFP_ATOMIC allocations. However after the list of pages goes to mpage_readpages, there can be significant intervals (including disk IO) before all the pages are inserted into the radix-tree. So the reserves can easily be depleted at that point. The patch is confirmed to fix the problem. Signed-off-by: Nick Piggin Cc: "David S. Miller" Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds /Âi¼–