Re: minimizing buffer size (i.e. page cache) for bulk copy/rsync -- Re: Swappiness in Buster

[Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org>]

Zenaan Harkness wrote: 
> 
> Seriously, is there a way to stop bulk copies from eternally flushing my
> $Desktop's cached pages down the drain minute after blessful minute,
> hour after gratitude filled hour?

softlimit is packaged in daemontools.

NAME
       softlimit - runs another program with new resource
limits.

SYNOPSIS
       softlimit [ opts ] child

DESCRIPTION
       opts is a series of getopt-style options.  child consists
of one or more arguments.

       softlimit sets soft resource limits as specified by opts.
It then runs child.

OPTIONS
       In  each  of  the  following  opts, n may be =,
indicating that the soft limit should be set equal to the hard
       limit.

       opts controlling memory use:

       -m n   Same as -d n -s n -l n -a n.

       -d n   Limit the data segment per process to n bytes.

       -s n   Limit the stack segment per process to n bytes.

       -l n   Limit the locked physical pages per process to n
bytes. This option has no  effect  on  some  operating
              systems.

       -a n   Limit  the  total  of  all segments per process to
n bytes. This option has no effect on some operating
              systems.

.... and so on for other resources to limit.

-dsr-