Re: Kernel cached memory

Robert Hancock
2005-07-26T05:03:25Z

John Pearson wrote:
> Wouldn't having (practically) all your memory used for cache slow down
> starting a new program? First it would have to free up that space, and then
> put stuff in that space, taking potentially twice as long.

If the cache pages are clean (not been modified since they were read
from the disk), then evicting that data will not take very long. If the
program you are just starting is not in the cache, then the time taken
to load it from disk will dwarf the time needed to evict cached pages.
And there's also the possibility that the cache contains the data you
are loading, which definitely will speed things up..

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Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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