on Tuesday 23 September 2008 10:20
in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
Reg/Linux wrote:

> my smelly son conned me out of my core2duo comp so he could play games
> which stuck me with a P4 2.4 comp to run Mandriva.. I'm going from 1.5
> gigs of ram to 512 on this comp... I've noticed that my swap file is
> always in use.. I don't recall that on a different P4 when I was running
> Mandriva 2007... just wondering if this should be expected? just a note
> that the comp is sitting idle and still using the swap file..and naturally
> jumps when I run an application... thanks for any and all input

I believe that swap partitions are more efficient than swap files -
not that it matters a lot.

Newer versions generally require more memory than old ones.

A tiny amount of swap space is used for housekeeping. How much
is in real use will depend dramatically on what applications
are being run and what data they are processing.

Run "top" in a terminal to find out what is happening.


--
sig goes here...
Peter D.

Peter D. wrote:

> on Tuesday 23 September 2008 10:20
> in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
> Reg/Linux wrote:
>
>> my smelly son conned me out of my core2duo comp so he could play games
>> which stuck me with a P4 2.4 comp to run Mandriva.. I'm going from 1.5
>> gigs of ram to 512 on this comp... I've noticed that my swap file is
>> always in use.. I don't recall that on a different P4 when I was running
>> Mandriva 2007... just wondering if this should be expected? just a note
>> that the comp is sitting idle and still using the swap file..and
>> naturally jumps when I run an application... thanks for any and all input
>
> I believe that swap partitions are more efficient than swap files -
> not that it matters a lot.
>
> Newer versions generally require more memory than old ones.
>
> A tiny amount of swap space is used for housekeeping. How much
> is in real use will depend dramatically on what applications
> are being run and what data they are processing.
>
> Run "top" in a terminal to find out what is happening.
>
>
of course I meant the partition... sigh..this is what happens when I fight
with windows all weekend... oddly enough, my processes are at about 18 %
running superkaramba, x, pulse audio etc... if I'm using that little of
processor available... why would the swap partition be running?

On Tuesday 23 September 2008 04:34, someone identifying as *Reg/Linux* wrote
in /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/

> Peter D. wrote:
>
>> on Tuesday 23 September 2008 10:20
>> in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
>> Reg/Linux wrote:
>>
>>> my smelly son conned me out of my core2duo comp so he could play games
>>> which stuck me with a P4 2.4 comp to run Mandriva.. I'm going from 1.5
>>> gigs of ram to 512 on this comp... I've noticed that my swap file is
>>> always in use.. I don't recall that on a different P4 when I was running
>>> Mandriva 2007... just wondering if this should be expected? just a note
>>> that the comp is sitting idle and still using the swap file..and
>>> naturally jumps when I run an application... thanks for any and all
>>> input
>>
>> I believe that swap partitions are more efficient than swap files -
>> not that it matters a lot.
>>
>> Newer versions generally require more memory than old ones.
>>
>> A tiny amount of swap space is used for housekeeping. How much
>> is in real use will depend dramatically on what applications
>> are being run and what data they are processing.
>>
>> Run "top" in a terminal to find out what is happening.
>>
> of course I meant the partition... sigh..this is what happens when I fight
> with windows all weekend... oddly enough, my processes are at about 18 %
> running superkaramba, x, pulse audio etc... if I'm using that little of
> processor available... why would the swap partition be running?

My guess is that you're running too many daemons, or that you have a memory
leak somewhere. FireFox has quite a reputation of leaking memory as well,
so if you have multiple FireFox sessions open, that could be a clue.

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

on Tuesday 23 September 2008 12:34
in the Usenet newsgroup alt.os.linux.mandriva
Reg/Linux wrote:

> Peter D. wrote:

[snip]
>> Run "top" in a terminal to find out what is happening.
>>
>>
> of course I meant the partition... sigh..this is what happens when I fight
> with windows all weekend... oddly enough, my processes are at about 18 %
> running superkaramba, x, pulse audio etc... if I'm using that little of
> processor available... why would the swap partition be running?

"top" shows memory use as well as cpu use.


--
sig goes here...
Peter D.

On Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:34:37 -0600, Reg/Linux wrote:

>> Run "top" in a terminal to find out what is happening.
>>
> of course I meant the partition... sigh..this is what happens when I
> fight with windows all weekend... oddly enough, my processes are at
> about 18 % running superkaramba, x, pulse audio etc... if I'm using that
> little of processor available... why would the swap partition be
> running?

It's called memory management (*). Linux keeps stuff that's been used in
available memory in case it's needed again. Swap is virtual memory, so
it looks available if it isn't full (**).

Also, CPU useage and memory usage are hardly coupled at all.

A process that does

forever:
allocate_5_MB_of_memory
sleep 10 seconds

will eat nearly 1 GB of RAM per hour without consuming any noticeable
amount of CPU.

The reverse is left as an exercise for the reader.

(*) If it weren't so secret, one could search google and wikipedia and
find out more (***).

(**) Yes, of course it's slightly more complicated than that.

(***) Wait a second...!