How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

[Paweł Zadrąg]

Yo...

In normal case, using harddisk as a swap space i should ask how to cut
down swapping, or make swapping when idle, etc... My case is a little
bit diffrent... I have a 256MB video card, while 240MB of it is used
as a swap space. And the question is: how to tune kernel to swap more
often. I known swapped memory must be copied back to ram before beeing
used, so i'm looking for a reasonable tunning values...

What do You think about that mighty list ?

--
Chears,
zeddi

Re: How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

[Marc Koschewski]

* Pawe? Zadr?g <p.zeddi@gmail.com> [2006-02-05 11:04:25 +0100]:

> Yo...
> 
> In normal case, using harddisk as a swap space i should ask how to cut
> down swapping, or make swapping when idle, etc... My case is a little
> bit diffrent... I have a 256MB video card, while 240MB of it is used
> as a swap space. And the question is: how to tune kernel to swap more
> often. I known swapped memory must be copied back to ram before beeing
> used, so i'm looking for a reasonable tunning values...
> 
> What do You think about that mighty list ?

Try playing around with /proc/sys/vm/swappiness. If you google for
'/proc/sys/vm/swappiness' you may find solutions on swapping.

Marc

Re: [OT] How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

[Eric Piel]

05.02.2006 11:04, Paweł Zadrąg wrote/a écrit:
> Yo...
> 
> In normal case, using harddisk as a swap space i should ask how to cut
> down swapping, or make swapping when idle, etc... My case is a little
> bit diffrent... I have a 256MB video card, while 240MB of it is used
> as a swap space. And the question is: how to tune kernel to swap more
> often. I known swapped memory must be copied back to ram before beeing
> used, so i'm looking for a reasonable tunning values...
> 
> What do You think about that mighty list ?
Actually this list is not about Linux tuning. Please read post only 
about bugs and patches for the linux kernel.

Anyway, I guess what you are looking for is the "swappiness". For more 
info check 
http://www.brunolinux.com/06-Fine_Tuning_Your_System/Swappiness.html

Am I correctly understanding that you are using your video card memory 
as a place to put swap? This sounds quite cool, how have you done this? 
Is there a driver which can report the video ram as a block device?

see you,
Eric

Re: [OT] How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

[Tomasz Torcz]

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On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 12:10:02PM +0100, Eric Piel wrote:
> 05.02.2006 11:04, Paweł Zadrąg wrote/a écrit:
> >Yo...
> >
> >In normal case, using harddisk as a swap space i should ask how to cut
> >down swapping, or make swapping when idle, etc... My case is a little
> >bit diffrent... I have a 256MB video card, while 240MB of it is used
> >as a swap space. And the question is: how to tune kernel to swap more
> >often. I known swapped memory must be copied back to ram before beeing
> >used, so i'm looking for a reasonable tunning values...
> 
> Am I correctly understanding that you are using your video card memory 
> as a place to put swap? This sounds quite cool, how have you done this? 
> Is there a driver which can report the video ram as a block device?

 It's an old trick with MTD devices:
http://hedera.linuxnews.pl/_news/2002/09/03/_long/1445.html

-- 
Tomasz Torcz                "Funeral in the morning, IDE hacking
zdzichu@irc.-nie.spam-.pl    in the afternoon and evening." - Alan Cox


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Re: [OT] How to tune kernel to swap more often (video ram swap)

[Helge Hafting]

Tomasz Torcz wrote:

>On Sun, Feb 05, 2006 at 12:10:02PM +0100, Eric Piel wrote:
>  
>
>>05.02.2006 11:04, Paweł Zadrąg wrote/a écrit:
>>    
>>
>>>Yo...
>>>
>>>In normal case, using harddisk as a swap space i should ask how to cut
>>>down swapping, or make swapping when idle, etc... My case is a little
>>>bit diffrent... I have a 256MB video card, while 240MB of it is used
>>>as a swap space. And the question is: how to tune kernel to swap more
>>>often. I known swapped memory must be copied back to ram before beeing
>>>used, so i'm looking for a reasonable tunning values...
>>>      
>>>
>>Am I correctly understanding that you are using your video card memory 
>>as a place to put swap? This sounds quite cool, how have you done this? 
>>Is there a driver which can report the video ram as a block device?
>>    
>>
>
> It's an old trick with MTD devices:
>http://hedera.linuxnews.pl/_news/2002/09/03/_long/1445.html
>  
>
Nice trick.  If you also have swapspace on disk, remember to
give the "mtd swap" higher priority in /etc/fstab.
That way, disk swapping will only happen when the mtd swap is full.

Helge Hafting