Use earlyoom: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom By default, it'll start killing processes when free memory drops below 10

Use earlyoom: https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom https://github.com/rfjakob/earlyoom By default, it'll start killing processes when free memory drops below 10%, though you can configure the threshold. I had the same problem for years, and then I started using earlyoom and I don't have to deal with it anymore.