*BSD News Article 89136


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From: dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie (David Malone)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: 2.2 GAMMA 2/5 results in SWAP FULL?
Date: 14 Feb 1997 03:28:49 -0000
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
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Dinesh Nair <dinesh@alphaque.com> writes:

>> the program calls malloc().  The memory is not returned until the
>> program exits.  

>and this explains the strange "memory leak" i've noticed in keeping
>netscape running for over eight hours at a stretch. ;)

I thought this had been changed at some stage, but maybe I'm wrong.

>but seriously folks, is there any method of tweaking this other than
>fiddling with source ? for eg, could i set limits on swapout and how
>long a page stays unused before it pages out ? basically, i've no
>problem with the default, but for some lightly loaded machines (like
>this one on my desktop now), i'd love to keep processes in RAM to
>prevent slow page-ins from an IDE.

Well - it keeps two copied of the page. One in RAM and one on the
disk. If it needs a page of RAM and one isn't available it will use
the one it has pre-pages out to the disk ( so there is no need to
page-out when more memory is required ). If the page remains unused
by anything else you have running it will, when needed be used again
without a page in.

( Or this is how I understand the situaltion ).

	David.