Matthias Scheler <tron%zhadum.org.uk@localhost> wrote: > What would be the sense in keeping allocated pages in memory even if > they haven't accessed for hours? Using the memory e.g. as disk > buffers will reduce the total amount of disk I/O which is what > a modern VM system tries to achieve. That may be true for a desktop system, but NEVER for a server system. If lighttpd is swapped because it wasn't used for some time, that's bad. If the python scripts I use via fcgi are swapped out (there are 4 threads of them, so it's very likely one will get swapped out after some time because not all are always used - and which one is used is randomly), it's even worse. So the probability is high that the user has to wait about 10 seconds till he gets a reply from for example hg (remember, first lighttpd needs to beloaded from swap, then one of the python threads). Is this desired behaviour for a server? Nope, it's really not, definitely not. This really kills the whole idea of having 4 threads so that no new thread needs to be spawned, which would take too long for the user to wait. Same for spamd which runs with 5 threads here. Kills really the point of having multiple threads to speed up spawning. It kills the whole idea of pre-spawning. > Please use Google to look for "Using swap is bad for performance" > and you will find some interesting comments on the topic. On a desktop maybe, but not on a server. And as far as I know, NetBSD is used more for servers than for desktops, though it's a very nice system for a desktop as well. -- Jonathan
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature