On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, Pappu wrote: > On Thursday, 11 April 2002 11:20:49 +1000, Daniel Pittman wrote: > > I have trouble, in fact, imagining the set of desktop programs that > > would manage to eat 2GB of space, even if they leaked awfully > > This need not be the case. Linux kernel uses all free memory for > caching.
[...] *nod* That's true, and as you correctly point out, this isn't a problem. However, Linux will not swap cached data, read-only program text or file-backed data that is up to date. So, for the OP to fill his 2GB partition he needs to have hit 2GB of allocated anonymous memory. Now, /that/ I find troubling. It's hard to find an application that can manage a working set of anonymous data greater than 100MB; even the bloated Mozilla can't manage that regularly, nor Emacs even under heavy use. So, even if the OP uses a kernel with the swap pre-allocation in action and has swap pages written and held for running applications, discounting unswappable pages, that's a *hell* of a lot of data. *That* is abnormal. Having 2GB of *RAM* filled, that's normal. 2GB of swap -- that's a sign that something is seriously odd on your machine. Daniel -- Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge. -- Horace Mann -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]