Re: why swap at all?

[Valdis . Kletnieks]

On Tue, 01 Jun 2004 22:14:26 +0200, FabF said:

> Boring....You can't have X root layer swapped to disk as it's often used
> ! Some quick lsof | grep "libX" gives all frontal applications 'swapping
> sensible' .fuser can do 'user resource reverse'.Kernel _can_ 'appl.
> resource reverse' as well.

The point you're missing is that if you use a rule such as "everything using
libX* isn't swappable", then the X *server* is suddenly the prime candidate for
swapping out (as it's quite likely the biggest user of memory not using libX*).
(Anybody who ever had the OOM killer whomp their X server to free up space
fast when the *real* problem was a cluster of 6 or 8 "large but still smaller
than the X server" processes knows exactly what I mean... ;)

> PS: I'm not talking about inactive desktop box.Such box has to be rl 3
> and is not meant to be user (geek) relevant :)

So you're saying that I should have kicked my laptop down to runlevel 3 just
because I went across the hall to the machine room to help get a few servers
into racks?  Or every time I go into a meeting, or get stuck on a longish phone
call?

Also, be *very* careful equating "user" with "geek" - at least some of us are
trying to produce systems that suit the needs of non-geek users....

Attachment: pgp00000.pgp
Description: PGP signature