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

[Helge Hafting]

H. Peter Anvin wrote:
[...]
>>Whenever they quit one big app to run another big one,
>>everything is pulled in from swap before the next
>>big app start.  Then it starts, and push everything out
>>again.  The current system lets you quit one app,
>>the stuff in swap remains there until someone actually use it,
>>and lots of free memory remain in case it is needed.
>>
>>The "intelligent" thing is to leave stuff in swap until
>>some app needs it, and pull it in then.  Perhaps with
>>some read-ahead/clustering to minimize io load.
>>
> 
> 
> This is why you pull things in from swap, but keep tabs on the fact
> that it's clean against swap and therefore can be culled at will if
> you don't need it.  In other words -- it's present *both* in swap and
> RAM.

Good point.
The question is still what to pull in.  Stuff in swap
is one option.  It has been used before, and might
be needed again.

Contents of memory mapped files (executables and others) are another.
We can't know what we will need next, but at least the already opened
files ought to be as likely as swap.

Pulling other files into cache is a third option.  Going for open
files (readahead) or recently used ones might be smart.

Helge Hafting