From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 24 Jun 2001 16:09:57 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 24 Jun 2001 16:09:38 -0400 Received: from turnover.lancs.ac.uk ([148.88.17.220]:60921 "EHLO helium.chromatix.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sun, 24 Jun 2001 16:09:32 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: In-Reply-To: Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 21:07:55 +0100 To: Maciej Zenczykowski , From: Jonathan Morton Subject: Re: Thrashing WITHOUT swap. Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org >Now my question is how can it be >thrashing with swap explicitly turned off? Easy. All applications are themselves swap space - the binary is merely memory-mapped onto the executable file. When the system gets low on memory, the only thing it can do is purge some binary pages, and then repeatedly page them back in from the original executable file. If you added a little bit of swap, it would be able to page out some idle data rather than binaries, and would probably avoid thrashing. -- -------------------------------------------------------------- from: Jonathan "Chromatix" Morton mail: chromi@cyberspace.org (not for attachments) website: http://www.chromatix.uklinux.net/vnc/ geekcode: GCS$/E dpu(!) s:- a20 C+++ UL++ P L+++ E W+ N- o? K? w--- O-- M++$ V? PS PE- Y+ PGP++ t- 5- X- R !tv b++ DI+++ D G e+ h+ r++ y+(*) tagline: The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it.