On 01/06/12 13:33, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: >> > I don't know the ultimate reason behind this ugly behaviour of Linux >> > when the swapping process is happening, but I know this is real and it >> > happens because I have experimented this situation myself more than a >> > couple of times. > It's a matter of that gets swapped and linux choosing the wrong thing to > swap (far too often). There is some "bug" in linux that when you have > lots and lots of IO at some point the swap heuristics tip over and start > swapping apps and usefull data to create more cache space for > IO. Doesn't matter that you already have 3GB for cache, it still swaps > out your mouse cursor and then things go real bad. This makes sense. Many times I have experimented this situation while copying a large file from a quick device (hdd) to a very slow device (cheap usb stick) IMHO The logical way of behaving in such situation is to slow-down the IO bandwidth of the processes that are filling the cache, by sending to sleep any process that requests more IO while the cache is full instead of trying to free RAM by swapping out things from the RAM to the swap. Do you know any way to avoid (or mitigate) this? Perhaps some sysctl variable? Can't Linux be configured to just block (sleep) any process that requests IO while the cache is full? Perhaps a good idea would be to limit the cache size on a per-PID basis and block (sleep) the pid while its cache is full. Thanks! Best regards! -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez http://neutrino.es Igalia - Free Software Engineering http://www.igalia.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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