On Thu, 19 Aug 2010, Gregory Hosler wrote:
If the memory gets fragged and the kernel wants to defrag, e.g. for a
memory
request from an application, in order to defrag any "dirty" data portions
(those
pages that have been written to), the kernel *requires* there to be swap.
Otherwise there is no place to write the dirty pages out, in order to read them
in elsewhere.
I didn't realize that memory could get fragged.
I'd thought that one reason for virtual memory
was allowing pages to be renumbered at will,
the kernel's will, of course.
--
Michael hennebry(a)web.cs.ndsu.NoDak.edu
"Pessimist: The glass is half empty.
Optimist: The glass is half full.
Engineer: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be."