why swap at all?

From: Anthony DiSante (orders_at_nodivisions.com)
Date: 05/26/04

  • Next message: Benjamin Herrenschmidt: "Re: [PATCH] (signoff) ppc64: Fix possible race with set_pte on a present PTE" 
    Date:	Wed, 26 May 2004 02:38:23 -0400
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org

    As a general question about ram/swap and relating to some of the issues in
    this thread:

            ~500 megs cached yet 2.6.5 goes into swap hell

    Consider this: I have a desktop system with 256MB ram, so I make a 256MB
    swap partition. So I have 512MB "memory" and if some process wants more,
    too bad, there is no more.

    Now I buy another 256MB of ram, so I have 512MB of real memory. Why not
    just disable my swap completely now? I won't have increased my memory's
    size at all, but won't I have increased its performance lots?

    Or, to make it more appealing, say I initially had 512MB ram and now I have
    1GB. Wouldn't I much rather not use swap at all anymore, in this case, on
    my desktop?

    -Anthony
    http://nodivisions.com/
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  • Next message: Benjamin Herrenschmidt: "Re: [PATCH] (signoff) ppc64: Fix possible race with set_pte on a present PTE"

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