finley at privacynetworks.com
2007-Nov-09  06:13 UTC
[CentOS] CentOS 5: comment swap in fstab
I'm not sure what gave me this idea, but I decided
to comment out the swap partition in /etc/fstab
and reboot my laptop. I did not run swapoff directly at
any time.
I'm running more things now than I would ever dream of
to hammer my 500MB of memory, but I still notice NO
slowdown. This is the best desktop experience I've
ever had for any OS on any hardware!
Here's the first 12 lines in top (CPU)
top - 22:57:28 up  2:06,  1 user,  load average: 1.11, 0.89, 0.88
Tasks:  97 total,   2 running,  95 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 20.2%us,  2.9%sy,  0.0%ni, 76.2%id,  0.0%wa,  0.1%hi,  0.6%si, 
0.0%st
Mem:    449556k total,   441840k used,     7716k free,     9420k buffers
Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,   159416k cached
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 2921 root      15   0  227m  69m 7312 S 16.2 15.9  22:41.70 X
 3317 finley    15   0  240m  25m 8684 S  3.1  5.8   2:32.73 xine
 3204 finley    15   0  2160  772  564 S  2.2  0.2   2:02.71 top
 3100 finley    15   0  183m  51m  16m S  0.8 11.7   5:03.90 firefox-bin
 3116 finley    15   0  223m  39m 2440 S  0.4  8.9   0:54.26 java_vm
 3264 finley    15   0 32276 9788 7132 S  0.3  2.2   0:23.74 kpat
 3050 finley    15   0 33676  10m 7572 R  0.2  2.3   0:21.28 konsole
 3049 finley    15   0 32080 7620 5668 S  0.1  1.7   0:01.62 kscd
 3399 finley    15   0 57024  25m  16m S  0.1  5.7   0:08.55 konqueror
    1 root      15   0  2028  480  392 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.29 init
    2 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 migration/0
    3 root      34  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.06 ksoftirqd/0
Here's the top 12 lines (Mem)
top - 22:58:41 up  2:07,  1 user,  load average: 1.14, 0.92, 0.89
Tasks:  97 total,   3 running,  94 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 25.3%us,  2.9%sy,  0.0%ni, 71.5%id,  0.0%wa,  0.4%hi,  0.0%si, 
0.0%st
Mem:    449556k total,   442156k used,     7400k free,     9648k buffers
Swap:        0k total,        0k used,        0k free,   159160k cached
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 2921 root      16   0  227m  69m 7312 R 20.9 15.9  22:55.56 X
 3100 finley    15   0  183m  51m  16m S  0.4 11.7   5:05.54 firefox-bin
 3116 finley    15   0  223m  39m 2440 S  0.4  8.9   0:54.60 java_vm
 3253 finley    15   0  198m  34m 9.8m S  0.0  7.9   0:07.97 swriter.bin
 3317 finley    15   0  240m  25m 8684 S  2.9  5.8   2:35.17 xine
 3399 finley    15   0 57024  25m  16m S  0.0  5.7   0:08.57 konqueror
 3638 finley    15   0 93632  23m  15m S  0.0  5.4   0:03.80 gaim
 3026 finley    15   0 35180  13m  10m S  0.0  3.1   0:05.42 kded
 3336 finley    15   0 34232  11m 8776 S  0.0  2.7   1:01.01 kuickshow
 3038 finley    15   0 35096  11m 8828 S  0.0  2.7   0:23.91 kicker
 3050 finley    15   0 33676  10m 7844 R  0.4  2.4   0:21.53 konsole
 3264 finley    15   0 32276 9808 7152 S  0.0  2.2   0:23.85 kpat
As you can see, I'm running a KDE environment. I'm going to
try this in a gnome environment tomorrow.
This is on an HP Pavillion ze4800 I purchased at WalMart a bit
over two years ago for ~$900.
>From dmesg:
   AMD mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP2800+
   Memory: 447836k/457664k available
Linux info:
   [finley at c182 ~]$ cat /etc/issue
    CentOS release 5 (Final)
    Kernel \r on an \m
   [finley at c182 ~]$ uname -a
    Linux c182.pnd.net 2.6.18-8.1.6.el5 #1 SMP Thu Jun 14 17:46:09 EDT
2007 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux
Hope this makes someone else's day!
Steve Finley
finley at privacynetworks.com wrote:> I'm not sure what gave me this idea, but I decided > to comment out the swap partition in /etc/fstab > and reboot my laptop. I did not run swapoff directly at > any time. > > I'm running more things now than I would ever dream of > to hammer my 500MB of memory, but I still notice NO > slowdown. This is the best desktop experience I've > ever had for any OS on any hardware!Er...you won't experience any slowdown...you would experience killed app.> Mem: 449556k total, 442156k used, 7400k free, 9648k buffers > Swap: 0k total, 0k used, 0k free, 159160k cached > > PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND > 2921 root 16 0 227m 69m 7312 R 20.9 15.9 22:55.56 X > 3100 finley 15 0 183m 51m 16m S 0.4 11.7 5:05.54 firefox-bin > 3116 finley 15 0 223m 39m 2440 S 0.4 8.9 0:54.60 java_vm > 3253 finley 15 0 198m 34m 9.8m S 0.0 7.9 0:07.97 swriter.bin > 3317 finley 15 0 240m 25m 8684 S 2.9 5.8 2:35.17 xine > 3399 finley 15 0 57024 25m 16m S 0.0 5.7 0:08.57 konqueror > 3638 finley 15 0 93632 23m 15m S 0.0 5.4 0:03.80 gaim > > As you can see, I'm running a KDE environment. I'm going to > try this in a gnome environment tomorrow....Interesting, the numbers do not add up...I wonder what happens as you visit more websites with firefox...and if you also run thunderbird at the same time... Maybe you should stick to konqueror and kmail...> > Hope this makes someone else's day!My apologies if I burst any bubbles :-D