From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:28:44 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:28:35 -0400 Received: from [213.96.124.18] ([213.96.124.18]:37098 "HELO dardhal") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Wed, 6 Jun 2001 14:28:26 -0400 Date: Wed, 6 Jun 2001 20:29:02 +0000 From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jos=E9_Luis_Domingo_L=F3pez?= To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Break 2.4 VM in five easy steps Message-ID: <20010606202902.B1858@dardhal.mired.net> Mail-Followup-To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit In-Reply-To: <991815578.30689.1.camel@nomade> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.18i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wednesday, 06 June 2001, at 10:19:30 +0200, Xavier Bestel wrote: > On 05 Jun 2001 23:19:08 -0400, Derek Glidden wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 06, 2001 at 12:16:30PM +1000, Andrew Morton wrote: > [...] > Did you try to put twice as much swap as you have RAM ? (e.g. add a 512M > swapfile to your box) > I'm not a kernel guru, neither I can even try to understand how an operating system's memory management is designed or behaves. But I've some questions and thoughs: 1. Is swap=2xRAM a desing issue, or just a recommendation to get best results _based_ on current VM subsystem status ? 2. Wouldn't performance drop quickly when VM starts to swap processes/pages to disk, instead of keeping them on RAM ?. Maybe having a couple of GB worth of processes on disk is not very wyse. 3. Shouldn't an ideal VM manage swap space as an extension of system's RAM (of course, taking into account that RAM is much faster than HD, and nothing should be on swap if there is room enough on RAM ?. 4. Wouldn't you say that "adding more swap" (maybe 2xRAM is a recommendation, maybe a temporary fix, maybe a design decission) is the M$-way of fixing things ?. If there is a _real_ need for more swap to get a well baheving system, let's add swap. But we shouldn't hide inner desing and/or implementation problems under the "cheap multigigabyte disks" argument. 5. AFAIK, kernel developers are well aware of current 2.4.x problems in some areas. I don't think insisting on certain problems without providing ideas, testing, support, and limiting to just blaming the authors is the best way to go. Maybe kernel hackers are the most interested of all in fixing all these issues ASAP. Just some thoughts from someone unable to write C code and help fix this mess ;). -- José Luis Domingo López Linux Registered User #189436 Debian GNU/Linux Potato (P166 64 MB RAM) jdomingo EN internautas PUNTO org => ¿ Spam ? Atente a las consecuencias jdomingo AT internautas DOT org => Spam at your own risk