Re: Debian PC Requirements
On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Pappu wrote:
> On Thursday, 11 April 2002 11:20:49 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote:
> > I have trouble, in fact, imagining the set of desktop programs that
> > would manage to eat 2GB of space, even if they leaked awfully
>
> This need not be the case. Linux kernel uses all free memory for
> caching.
[...]
*nod* That's true, and as you correctly point out, this isn't a problem.
However, Linux will not swap cached data, read-only program text or
file-backed data that is up to date. So, for the OP to fill his 2GB
partition he needs to have hit 2GB of allocated anonymous memory.
Now, /that/ I find troubling. It's hard to find an application that can
manage a working set of anonymous data greater than 100MB; even the
bloated Mozilla can't manage that regularly, nor Emacs even under heavy
use.
So, even if the OP uses a kernel with the swap pre-allocation in action
and has swap pages written and held for running applications,
discounting unswappable pages, that's a *hell* of a lot of data.
*That* is abnormal. Having 2GB of *RAM* filled, that's normal. 2GB of
swap -- that's a sign that something is seriously odd on your machine.
Daniel
--
Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are
unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.
-- Horace Mann
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