From e8b50cb82d7d35550ffc7c3559eb99bfcd95dc8c Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eitan Adler Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2013 05:52:35 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Don't compare swap usage to Linux: it isn't known if this comparison is still true. Expand a bit on what &os; might do with the extra memory. Approved by: bcr (mentor) --- en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.xml | 12 +++++------- 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-) diff --git a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.xml b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.xml index a33e6c5507..2d5f82d736 100644 --- a/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.xml +++ b/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/book.xml @@ -7960,18 +7960,16 @@ hint.sio.7.irq="12" - &os; uses far more swap space than &linux;. Why? + &os; a lot of swap space even when the computer has + free memory left. Why? - &os; only appears to use more swap than &linux;. In - actual fact, it does not. The main difference between &os; - and &linux; in this regard is that &os; will proactively + &os; will proactively move entirely idle, unused pages of main memory into swap in order to make more main memory available for active use. - &linux; tends to only move pages to swap as a last resort. - The perceived heavier use of swap is balanced by the more - efficient use of main memory. + This heavy use of swap is balanced by using the extra free + memory for cacheing. Note that while &os; is proactive in this regard, it does not arbitrarily decide to swap pages when the system is