[ale] Tendency up which to avoid looking things

[Michael D. Hirsch]

Kevin Krumwiede writes:
 > I searched high and low and I can't find where I read this.  I think it
 > was in the LKML.  IIRC, the statement came from Linus himself.  But it
 > may have only applied before the VM was ripped out and replaced c.
 > 2.4.10.  Or it may have had to do with the "OOM killer" bug that was
 > fixed in 2.4.x (x = 14 I think).  Still, it's frustrating that I can't
 > find it now.

I don't have a reference, either, but it was for the pre 2.4.10
kernels.

I think it was a bit of an overstatement.  Basically, if your RAM was
of size x, the first x of swap did you almost no good.  When swapped
out memory was swapped back in the memory in swap wasn't cleared.  So
if was possible, if your swap equalled your ram (= x), to be using
only x and have no free swap.  So you needed significantly more swap
than ram to have a significant affect.

With .5 gig of ram and 128 mb swap, I'd guess that you never ran
enough stuff to put any pressure on your ram, so you didn't notice a
problem.

--Michael

 > Krum
 > 
 > On Fri, 2002-04-26 at 07:47, Geoffrey wrote:
 > > 
 > > Kevin Krumwiede wrote:
 > > > This may have been fixed, but with early 2.4 kernels, swap >= 2x RAM was
 > > > a requirement or else it would thrash exactly as you describe.
 > > 
 > > Can you define 'early?'  I'm at 2.4.17, but have been through various 
 > > 2.4.? (2.4.3 -> 2.4.17) kernels and have not seen this problem.  .5 gig 
 > > ram and 128 mb swap.
 > 
 > 
 > 
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