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On 03/04/2020 09:24, Richmond wrote:
I was running firefox and had plenty of tabs open, but reasoned that if these are swapped out (that is to say the memory used by them is swapped out) then it won't matter.
Stop there. We've got to stop talking about 'swap'. It's an anachronism from the days when UNIX was a roll-in/roll-out system, version 5,6,,7; before Virtual Memory and long before the VM mapping technique for file access. Linux runs with TWO virtual memory queues, one for immutable data, one for mutable data. The immutable data is, essentially code. Since it can always be retrieved from the file system it is never swapped out. Pages on that queue simply 'age out' and are made available in the general pool. All memory except the kernel is on a queue, and, yes, that also goes for the mapping tables, the things that do the virtual-to-physical mapping. If you think that is an OUCH, the "Yah! You betcha!". If the system has to page-out (never say 'swap out'!) those then it really is memory hungry and the relevant process is crippled. Yes, a bad link editor that puts commonly used code on the same page as rarely used code, many times over, is idiotic. The same goes for mutable data. Perhaps the command line parameters get set but are they used thoughout the program? Link editor issues again. The problem with pages in firefox invovle HTML and that means 'rendering' and interpreting and that drags in CSS files. I've seen machine generated CSS on commercial sites that is, while humungous, could be condensed, made heirarchical, and contains items for every imaginable situation but don't actually occur. All of whcih makes rendering the page slower and takes up memory. And ultimately, these days, web pages are graphics-intense. Rendering graphics is more code, more CSS, more memory. You might ask why your phone or tablet performs so much better? A lot has t do with hardware acceleration but a lot more has to do with code libraries that are turned for the hardware. I can understand that a map HAS to be rendered with graphics, but you might compare the performance with graphic turned off or make use of Lynx to read pages where you have no interest in the banner images or other graphical eye-candy. -- A: Yes. > Q: Are you sure? >> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation. >>> Q: Why is top posting frowned upon? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org