On Thursday 06 January 2005 17:46, Mike Hardy wrote: > > You are correct that I was getting at the zero swap argument - and I > agree that it is vastly different from simply not expecting it. It is > important to know that there is no inherent need for swap in the kernel > though - it is simply used as more "memory" (albeit slower, and with > some optimizations to work better with real memory) and if you don't > need it, you don't need it. > If I recollect a recent thread on LKML correctly, your 'no inherent need for swap' might be wrong. I think the gist was this: the kernel can sometimes needs to move bits of memory in order to free up dma-able ram, or lowmem. If I recall correctly, the kernel can only do this move via swap, even if there is stacks of free (non-dmaable or highmem) memory. I distinctly remember the moral of the thread being "Always mount some swap, if you can" This might have changed though, or I might have got it completely wrong. - I've cc'ed LKML incase somebody more knowledgeable can comment... Andrew Walrond - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
