Laine Stump wrote:
> 
> This seems like a serious enough problem that it should get some serious
> attention (are I and the couple of people who empathized the only people
> who ever swap?); I know it would be better to just install enough RAM

I run 'xv' also.. :)  My machine has 32MB, and doesn't swap a whole 
lot.  When it does though, I definitely see the problems you've
been discussing. (machine freezes for a bit when I hit swap)
I don't have the expertise to fix it, but...  Some major swap hogs
('xv' as an example) can be controlled a bit by linking them with the
gnumalloc library.  YMMV, but before I relinked xv it would grow and
grow until it ran out of swap.  I linked with gnumalloc, and xv stays
right around 5-7MB.

> that the machines never have to swap, but we push them to whatever
> limits they have, and sometimes go just over the physical RAM size no
> matter how big we set it. I wish I had the time/energy/expertise to work

Heh, heh..  Isn't this the whole reason for VM?  :)

-Andrew