"Tshepang Lekhonkhobe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> RES (aka RSS) is actually extremely important: if the sum of all >> programs' RSS exceeds your RAM size, your system will thrash, and >> thrashing is not good. > > What does thrashing mean?
In this case it means that the processes are trying to use more memory _actively_ than will fit in RAM, and you end up with a very high page fault rate, meaning your system spends much more time doing disk I/O to the swap area than it does actually computing. You tell this is happening if your system seems _very_ slow, but the CPU still seems to be mostly idle. -Miles -- ===== (^o^; (())) *This is the cute octopus virus, please copy it into your sig so it can spread. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
