I've hit heavy swapping cases a few times on my home linux box and was dissapointed in oom killer. I wanted it to kill something so I could get my system back,

I've hit heavy swapping cases a few times on my home linux box and was dissapointed in oom killer. I wanted it to kill something so I could get my system back, but it didn't seem to trigger. Instead the system became progressively more unresponsive until basically all UI updates stopped. I tried switching to a console prompt but even that was like molasses. Does it only kick in when the swap is so full? If so then perhaps it's a bit late as things so down so dramatically as swap nears being full, it may not be able to become full as the system grinds to a halt. I'd be interested to hear what experiences others have had with oom-killer