Re: Linux doesn't seem to manage memory very well

On 5/1/24 05:32, James Harris wrote:

Not a question, just an observation.

There more to it than just the amount of free RAM.

I say that Linux doesn't seem to handle memory well because my laptop had 8GB RAM (which, frankly, Windows seems to find perfectly adequate for a similar workload). Under Linux the RAM would fill up and then swap space would be used. Then the machine would become largely unresponsive - e.g. taking minutes to switch between windows.

Linux uses otherwise unused RAM for disk cache:
Link - Help! Linux ate my RAM!
  - https://www.linuxatemyram.com/
But using swap tells me that something else, not just Linux itself, is consuming / leaking memory.

So I upgraded the RAM. It now has three times as much (i.e. 24GB)! But even so, RAM has still steadily filled up until reaching the full 24GB. What's more, it's now showing 4.8GB of swap space in use.

See what's using the swap.  That's going to be the offending process.
Run `top`
Hit the `f` key to add a field.
Scroll down to SWAP and hit the space ` ` key to turn the swap column on.
Hit the `s` key while still on SWAP to make it the sort column.
Hit the `q` key to go back to the main screen and see what's using swap.
--
Grant. . . .