Performance enhancements

[Net Llama!]

On Mon, 30 Dec 2002, Marvin P. Dickens wrote:
>
> > So, the question remains, how does *disabling* swap aid in system performance. Without swap, how does the kernel "make unused pages available for other work"?
>
> It does not use swap pages unless they are needed. Swap pages are slower than ram.

And if you run out of RAM, then what's slower, swap or a hung box?

> > I'll agree with you here. So what you're *really* saying is that you should have as much RAM as necessary to render Swap unecessary. But, how does the act of *disabling swap* accomplish this?
>
>
> The kernel does not use swap until all ram is exhausted. Ram is fast. Swap is slow. Swap is
> supposed to be a backup for low memory. It's slow. But, what it has become is a cure all
> of underprovisioned machines.
>
> I'm going to lunch :) If there is any more discussion about this I'll reply when I get back.

The only discussion is over your claim that disabling swap improves
performaance, which it does not under a 2.4.x kernel.  Or if it does, you
haven't provided any documentation to back up that asertion.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lonni J Friedman				netllama at linux-sxs.org
Linux Step-by-step & TyGeMo		     http://netllama.ipfox.com