Re: Swap space not used

[Bret Busby <bret@busby.net>]

On Fri, 4 May 2012, Ralf Mardorf wrote:

> Hm, I've got 4 GB RAM and two swaps, 2.17GiB and 2.43GiB, one on each
> HDD I'm using.
> I'm doing resource-intensive work with my machine.
> 4 GB RAM are enough for my needs and I never noticed that a swap was
> touched.
> For my kind of usage Linux (Debian and several other distros) are able
> to handle the RAM without fault.
>
> The rule that a swap should be double as large as the RAM is outdated.
>
> Anyway, some people might need much RAM.
>
> Sometime ago I noticed that some (perhaps all, I didn't checked this)
> x86_64 kernels on my machine only access 3.8GB from the 4GB RAM on my
> machine (no shared memory for the framebuffer), 32-bit PAE kernels are
> all ok. I searched the web and found out that other people, having much
> more RAM mounted, have this issue with x86_64 kernels too.
>
> >         The computer has 8GB of RAM, and I have found that the
> >         tendency of web site develpoers, is increased sloppiness, as
> >         too many web site
> >         developers appear to work on the principle that computers have
> >         an
> >         infinite amount of RAM for them to squander.
>
> I don't think so, since there are still a lot of people using 32-bit
> Windows installs that can access less than 4GB. If you've got issues
> with 8GB RAM when surfing the Internet, I suspect that some script set
> limits for the RAM.

It could simply be malicious web sites.

I have just tried (repeatedly) to access whitepages.com.au, using 
konqueror (one of the web browsers that I have kept allowing 
Javascript), and, each time that I try to use the web site, it just 
freezes konqueror, requiring me to use the kill switch on konqueror.

It is mostly Australian government web sites and Australian government 
corporate websites, that use Javacript, that cause most problems, as 
they are simply malicious.

Some of the airlines' web sites are similarly malicious.

--
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams,
  published by Pan Books, 1992
....................................................