Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262361AbUD2BDJ (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:03:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262422AbUD2BDJ (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:03:09 -0400 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:53216 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262361AbUD2BBl (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Apr 2004 21:01:41 -0400 Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 18:00:38 -0700 From: Andrew Morton To: brettspamacct@fastclick.com Cc: jgarzik@pobox.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: ~500 megs cached yet 2.6.5 goes into swap hell Message-Id: <20040428180038.73a38683.akpm@osdl.org> In-Reply-To: <40905127.3000001@fastclick.com> References: <409021D3.4060305@fastclick.com> <20040428170106.122fd94e.akpm@osdl.org> <409047E6.5000505@pobox.com> <40905127.3000001@fastclick.com> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.7 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-redhat-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 861 Lines: 19 "Brett E." wrote: > > Or how about "Use ALL the cache you want Mr. Kernel. But when I want > more physical memory pages, just reap cache pages and only swap out when > the cache is down to a certain size(configurable, say 100megs or > something)." Have you tried decreasing /proc/sys/vm/swappiness? That's what it is for. My point is that decreasing the tendency of the kernel to swap stuff out is wrong. You really don't want hundreds of megabytes of BloatyApp's untouched memory floating about in the machine. Get it out on the disk, use the memory for something useful. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/