Re: [Slightly OT] Releasing swap space?

[AG <computing.account@googlemail.com>]

On 14/08/11 14:35, Ivan Shmakov wrote:
> > > > > > AG<computing.account@googlemail.com>  writes:
>   >  Just a quick query about releasing swap space.  On occasion according to
>   >  Conky (system monitoring app), the swap space (set at 3Gb) sometimes
>   >  gets used to up to 15% especially if using something like Pan for
>   >  usenet.
>
>   >  Is there any value/ harm in releasing this space using something like:
>
>   >  swapoff -a&&  swapon -a [1]
>
> 	Without the context, I see neither harm nor value in doing that.
>
> 	However, if there was some task which used a lot of virtual
> 	memory, thus forcing the other tasks' pages to be moved to swap,
> 	doing that will bring those pages back to RAM, which may improve
> 	the future responsiveness of the system.  (Up to the time when
> 	such a memory-hungry task is run again; say, a Web browser with
> 	a few dozens of graphically-rich pages in the tabs.)
>
>   >  Thanks for your opinions.
>
>   >  [1] found on the web, but not AFAIK Debian specific

Thank you for that, Ivan.

I have recently switched to Xfce4 on Stable from Gnome because the 
latter was quite a memory hog and seemed to retain pages in swap until I 
logged/ rebooted.  Xfce4 fortunately doesn't do this, but I did notice 
that after using Swiftfox I was finding that 3% usage of swap didn't 
clear when I closed the app.  This set me to wondering how much control 
I could exert and even should exert over swap's content.

Are you able to confirm whether the code given previously is accurate 
*and* safe should I want to pursue clearing swap on the fly?

Cheers

AG