[H-GEN] What size swap space is optimum?

Webmaster terranova at acenet.net.au
Mon Apr 23 17:33:45 EDT 2001


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> Most of the time spent dealing with swap space will be actual
> physical disk access. The CPU load of performing swap
> operations isn't large, although the interruptions the
> processer gets can make it less efficient than it should be. 

OK, thanks for the pointers. But I'd now like to raise the original issue which
promted my inquiry. When I'm surfing the Net and get more than two Netscape
screens running, the system often locks up in 'disk-thrashing mode' - the HDD
sits churning away in an endless loop - and I've let it go as long as ten
minutes before hitting reset. I made the assumption that this was due to
insufficient memory (real or virtual - 32MB RAM, 32MB swap partition) and have
followed this through.

Further investigation suggests that this event occurs when Java is invoked, and
I've now seen enough snide comments about Netscape (it really is a dreadful
piece of software) to prompt inquiries in this direction. Even with low memory
and lots of swapping, any instruction sequence should surely proceed to
completion this side of Xmas - correct?

So is my experience unique, or do others have the same trouble?

Carl Adams.

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