Re: How do I make this thing stop laging? Reboot? Sounds like Windows!

[Karl Vogel <karl.vogel@seagha.com>]

On 18 Jun 2003, you wrote in linux.kernel:

> rmoser wrote:
> [...]
>> Ten minutes later I get the brains to run top.  It seems I have about
>> 50 MB in swap, and 54 MB free memory.  So I wait ten minutes more.
>> 
>> No change.
>> 
>> % swapoff -a; swapon -a
>> 
>> Fixes all my problems.
>> 
>> Now this long story shows something:  The kernel appears to be unable
>> to intelligently pull swap back into RAM.  What gives?
>> 
> Because the problem _is_ unsolvable.  You want the kernel
> to go "oh, lots of free memory showed up, lets pull
> everything in from swap just in case someone might need it."


You might want to try Con Kolivas' patches on:
   http://members.optusnet.com.au/ckolivas/kernel/

More specifically the 'swap prefetch' patch. From this FAQ:

--
Swap prefetching? If you have >10% free physical ram and any used swap it 
will start swapping pages back into physical ram. Probably not of real 
benefit but many people like this idea. I have a soft spot for it and like 
using it.
--

The disadvantage is ofcourse that you will be using up more RAM than is 
really necessary.