[ale] Low memory system

[Vernard Martin]

On Fri, Dec 28, 2001 at 03:52:22PM -0500, Geoffrey wrote:
> The 2x memory thing is a ballpark figure.  If you've got 1 gig of
> memory, you certainly don't need 2 gig of swap.  On the other hand, you
> probably want more then 2x swap if you've got 8 meg of memory.  Apply 2x
> rule with common sense.

Actually, this WASN'T the case with the memory management in linux. Turns out
thtere was a pathological case where the system would start using swap before
all memory was actually exhausted. It didn't show up often but on the linux
kernel mailing list, several notables could reproduct the problem consistently
regardess of the amount of ram you had. It just took longer for it to show up
if you had lots of ram.

The *concept* is sound but the implementation had flaws. I woudln't have
believed it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes.

V
-- 
Vernard Martin (vernard at cc.gatech.edu) http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~vernard/     
        "Anything worth fighting over is worth fighting dirty over"

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