Re: Apple requires too much money and sacrifice of control

Alan wrote this post while blinking in Morse code:

On 2025-04-04 17:21, Joel wrote:

Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> wrote:
 

https://i.imgur.com/bNZVr8U.png

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You've just shown that you DO NOT need 32GB of RAM...
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(and that Linux isn't smart enough to count RAM in base-2).

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https://i.imgur.com/4jItMI0.png
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As you can see, today, I have puked out a little into swap.

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Dude: give it up.
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You've got 33.5 decimal gigabytes of RAM.
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19.2GB is in use with the other 14.3GB used for cache.
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And 3.7MB...
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...one HUNDREDTH of one percent of it...
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...is swapped out...
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...and you think that's a solid argument?
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Linux has 14.3GB used for caching and for some reason chooses to swap a
tiny, TINY fraction of data rather than use a little less for cache...
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...and you think you're proving something good?

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So let me get this straight, your argument is that cache isn't
actually needed?

I'm arguing that you've yet to show your system actually using close to
all the RAM you say you need.

 
It's not using it *for main RAM*, but including cache, it literally is
using it all as the image shows, requiring the use of swap.

Nope.
>
For whatever reason, Linux is prioritizing caching over keeping data in
RAM to avoid swapping out.

That priority can be changed in Linux by changing the "swappiness".

Swappiness sets the relative weight of swapping out a page versus dropping a
cache. If you set it to a low value, the kernel is much less likely to swap out
an anonymous page instead of dropping a cached page. Yes, you will see a lower
swap usage, but your disk IO won't actually improve because you have less RAM
available for read and write caching.

In other words, the Linux kernel virtual memory manager knows better than you.

--
Our [softball] team usually puts the other woman at second base, where the
maximum possible number of males can get there on short notice to help out
in case of emergency.  As far as I can tell, our second basewoman is a pretty
good baseball player, better than I am, anyway, but there's no way to know
for sure because if the ball gets anywhere near her, a male comes barging
over from, say, right field, to deal with it.  She's been on the team for
three seasons now, but the males still don't trust her.  They know, deep in
their souls, that if she had to choose between catching a fly ball and saving
an infant's life, she probably would elect to save the infant's life, without
ever considering whether there were men on base.
-- Dave Barry, "Sports is a Drag"