Re: Controlling swapping
Hi,
What's your machine configuration? I've used Linux with Kernels 2.4.18 and
2.2.17 on a Pentium 133MHz machine with 48MB RAM (and before that 32MB) and
128MB Swap (and before that it had 64MB Swap) and I've used KDE and other
WindowManagers and memory monsters such as StarOffice and multiple instances
of Netscape and I've never noticed this problem. Apps such as StarOffice were
slow to load, however they wouldn't take an absolute absurd time to come
outta swap.
It would help if you could give me your machine config along with the apps u
typically use. Also if you could provide info on which apps seem to take
longer getting outta swap and stuff like that it'll give a clue as to where
the prob lies.
Bye for now
On Wednesday 19 Feb 2003 12:23 am, Roy Pluschke wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Feb 2003 10:03:16 -0800
>
> "Charlie Reiman" <creiman@kefta.com> wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Is there a way to control the aggresiveness of swapping. My computer is
> > > on all the time with most of my most commonly used applications left
> > > open. If the computer is not used for a while it takes an annoying long
> > > amount of time to reload the open applications from swap (I may as well
> > > reload the program form scratch). Is there a way to tell the kernel not
> > > to swap unless required?
> > >
> > > I'm using 2.4.20 on a much modified testing system. The box is only
> > > used for desktop purposes.
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance.
> > > R.J. Pluschke
> >
> > I'm no kernel expert here but I've never seen linx swap out things unless
> > it needed to. I suspect you've got a periodic task that wakes up and
> > demands memory. Likely culrpits are cron tasks or a screen saver.
> >
> > If you have enough memory, you can disable the swap file completely and
> > run with just RAM. I've done this on my laptop and it works fine. As a
> > bonus, this may force the culprit process to log an error when it cannot
> > allocate enough memory.
> >
> > Good luck.
> >
> > Charlie.
>
> No unusual periodic tasks, don't use a screen saver (just blanking). It
> appears to be a function of time, if an open program is not used for a
> while it gets swapped to disk even if no other program is requesting
> memory. I suppose the kernel is anticipating -- this process hasn't been
> used for a while, swap it out, be ready for a new process. I would
> try to run without swap but editing the odd large graphic file requires
> it. The newer the kernel is the more I notice this. It didn't happen
> with kernel 0.99 pl 14 :)
>
> Thanks
>
> R. Pluschke
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