Re: [RFC] VM: I have a dream...

[Nix <nix@esperi.org.uk>]

On 23 Jan 2006, Diego Calleja wrote:
> El Mon, 23 Jan 2006 09:05:41 -0600,
> Ram Gupta <ram.gupta5@gmail.com> escribió:
> 
>> Linux also supports multiple swap files . But these are more
> 
> There're in fact a "dynamic swap" tool which apparently
> does what mac os x do: http://dynswapd.sourceforge.net/
> 
> However, I doubt the approach is really useful. If you need that much
> swap space, you're going well beyond the capabilities of the machine.

Well, to some extent it depends on your access patterns. The backup
program I use (`dar') is an enormous memory hog: it happily eats 5Gb on
my main fileserver (an UltraSPARC, so compiling it 64-bit does away with
address space sizing problems). That machine has only 512Mb RAM, so
you'd expect the thing would be swapping to death; but the backup
program's locality of reference is sufficiently good that it doesn't
swap much at all (and that in one tight lump at the end).

-- 
`Everyone has skeletons in the closet.  The US has the skeletons
 driving living folks into the closet.' --- Rebecca Ore