[Discuss] ssd's in linux

[blu at nedharvey.com (Edward Ned Harvey (blu))]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of Jack Coats
> 
> I found having 'enough ram', don't configure swap, or swap to a

How many times have we had this conversation?  Agreed you should never swap active memory, and therefore, you need to have enough memory in your system.  And the linux kernel will use free memory for caching & buffering to gain performance.

But if you add some swap to your system, your kernel will swap out idle processes, whenever the idle process is less active than some working cache data.  By giving your system some swap, you gain performance, because the kernel is able to keep something in cache which is more valuable than a zombie process or whatever that could be put aside to make more room for more cache.