caching/buffering/ram usage (linux-, not debian-specific)

[Robert Waldner <Waldner@KPNQwest.at>]

Hi!

I´m trying to get my workstation running as fast as possible, and since 
I´ve got hold of some extra ram ...

Please correct me if I´m wrong:

Linux uses most of the free ram for caching (read+write), up to a 
certain percentage which is kept free for general purposes. afaik this 
is one of the reasons why linux quasi out-of-the-box does most tasks 
faster than the redmond stuff.

As long as I had 128 megs there were ~ 3 megs free with some 60 megs 
used for buffers. Now I have 320 megs ram, but only about 150 are used 
for buffers, 100 are free.

             total    used    free  shared  buffers  cached
Mem:        321784  224244   97540   11820   155660   10608
-/+ buffers/cache:   57976  263808
Swap:       128516   80436   48080

What can I do to increase the amount of ram used for buffering/caching 
so that only 5-10 % are left free? (Or would that be a "bad idea" (tm)?)

If I´m not mistaken the whole swapped-out pages should acutually fit 
into the free ram, so swapping here seems rather, umm, less than 
optimal?

The system is an up-to-date potato
Linux cruncher 2.2.15 #1 Thu Jun 1 10:47:16 EST 2000 i686 unknown

TIA for every hint (and FM to R ;),
&rw