Ar an t-aonú lá is triochad de mí Lúnasa, scríobh Johnny Billquist: 

 > On Tue, 31 Aug 2004, Noriyuki Soda wrote:
 >
 > > FWIW, I'm actually using {2,4} for vm.file{min,max} on my machines,
 > > and I'm happier than the default.
 > > Note that the machines can use most of memory for file cache even
 > > with the {2,4} setting, if anon pages and exec pages aren't big.
 > 
 > On a different note, then. What *exacly* does vm.filemax say???

sysctl(3): 

     [...]
     VM_FILEMAX
             The percentage of physical memory which will be reclaimed from
             other types of memory usage to store cached file data.

 > The system will use more if more is available. I imagine I understand what 
 > vm.filemin says...

(This isn't Linux, the man pages are worth reading ...)

It confused me too, but Noriyuki Soda is exactly right. (NS--not meaning to
be especially formal, I'd have used your given name there if I could work
out which it was--family name in capital letters makes this easier for the
ignorant westerners out here, people.) So, IMO, that means the defaults
make even less sense. Whee. 

-- 
Like the early Christians, Marx expected the millennium very soon; like
their successors, his have been disappointed--once more, the world has shown
itself recalcitrant to a tidy formula embodying the hopes of some section of
mankind. (Russell)