Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 20 Feb 1998 01:19:18 +0100 (MET) | From | Rik van Riel <> | Subject | Re: New Feature Idea: Compress swap file |
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On 19 Feb 1998, Jim Pick wrote: > Adam Heath <adam.heath%usa.net@localhost.rutgers.edu> writes: > > > How about, when using swap, it is compressed before it is written out? > > Can't this already be done by using mkswap to make a swap file on a > compressed ext2 filesystem?
Sorry Jim and Adam, compressed swap has already been implemented and tried. The results were: - more CPU spent on swapping --> slower system - more I/O spent on swapping because the I/O patterns became more complex than normal swap --> slower system
Compressed swap would only make sense when: - paging space is short - you are actually _swapping_ (suspending_) some process to alleviate the above problem
This way, we could make sure that paging space remains free, by doing the following when memory is short: - swap out compressed images of some processes - don't allow anyone but root to fork() or create another adress space (when memory is really tight)
This way, a system will stay up, regardless of what. This feature might be important for some people, and very nice for most of us.
Rik. +-----------------------------+------------------------------+ | For Linux mm-patches, go to | "I'm busy managing memory.." | | my homepage (via LinuxHQ). | H.H.vanRiel@fys.ruu.nl | | ...submissions welcome... | http://www.fys.ruu.nl/~riel/ | +-----------------------------+------------------------------+
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