Why does top continue to show that memory into swap space after process that caused stats to go into swap space stops? on SuSE 8 Charlie 10/20/05 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This message may contain confidential information, and is intended only for the use of the individual(s) to whom it is addressed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charlie, On Thursday 20 October 2005 09:50, Charlie Smith wrote:
Why does top continue to show that memory into swap space after process that caused stats to go into swap space stops?
Much of the memory used by any given process is a direct reflection of disk content (executable files or memory-mapped shared libraries are a prime example). The kernel does not abandon those pages holding disk content because it could be used again soon. However, if no process is actively using a given page and the memory is needed for some other purpose, then the old, unused contents will be discarded and the new disk content loaded in its place. Please don't get bothered about high memory utilization. It's Linux's way of doing things and it's smart. Keeping memory free for no reason other than to keep it free is nothing more than wasting it.
Charlie
Randall Schulz
On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 10:33:39AM -0700, Randall R Schulz took 34 lines to write:
Charlie,
On Thursday 20 October 2005 09:50, Charlie Smith wrote:
Why does top continue to show that memory into swap space after process that caused stats to go into swap space stops?
[snippage]
Please don't get bothered about high memory utilization. It's Linux's way of doing things and it's smart. Keeping memory free for no reason other than to keep it free is nothing more than wasting it.
Indeed. It's smart because the time and effort involved in initializing memory is non-trivial. Kurt -- Individualists unite!
participants (3)
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Charlie Smith -
Kurt Wall -
Randall R Schulz