Swap

Source

Lazyweb, oh lazyweb... I still don't really understand how Linux handles swap space. One thing in particular irritates the hell out of me. I have 1.5GB of RAM, but I still occasionally manage to wind up using it all, just for a brief time while I'm running a lot of stuff, and then things start to swap. This is fine. What I DON'T understand is why, when I quit a bunch of apps and bring conventional RAM usage down to comfortably below maximum, this swap space is STILL used. And I still hear the telltale hard drive clicking which tells me stuff is still swapping. I mean, look at my htop right now: Mem[|||||||||||||||||||1044/1510MB] Swp[|||||||||||| 435/1153MB] There's 450MB of system RAM sitting there doing nothing. *Why* is there still 435MB of swap space being used? I just don't get this. Can someone smart please explain it to me? :)

Comments

yoho wrote on 2007-02-23 08:39:
To get an answer, someone smart has to read your blog... Sorry, i'm not :)
SinnerBOFH wrote on 2007-02-23 13:54:
I am told "you're smart!" by my niece. Nevertheless, I have no explanation for the swap X-File. If you come through an explanation, please post it for all to know. Salut, Sinner
DoK wrote on 2007-02-25 23:24:
I'm a regular http://beranger.org reader and he seem to read your blog and got teh answer http://beranger.org/index.php?article=2470 Has he offers it's probably your swappiness (Mandriva's default is 60)