> Depends - if you're not using X then you won't mind X getting swapped > (running emerge from ssh/etc). If you are using X then chance are it > won't get swapped in the first place. If the issue is gcc using all ram > for itself, then the presence/absence of tmpfs probably won't make much > difference - gcc still has to run. > > I don't see why swap should be any better/worse than any other form of > disk access. If anything it is superior as it allows the kernel to > manage it like any other form of RAM, and the kernel isn't forced to > flush it out to disk within some time (writes to a filesystem are forced > to sync within some time to prevent data loss - this hurts performance > and is totally unnecessary for temporary build files that will get > deleted when you re-run emerge anyway). > > Even if you don't have a tmpfs writing to disk will tend to drive unused > ram into swap - the system will swap idle memory to make room for > cache/buffers - where the recently-written files will reside in ram. > > Now, in an extreme case where you have less RAM than the resident size > of the apps you have running then swap will be horrible - but that is > because you're continuously swapping in and out. And I doubt a tmpfs > will make much difference either way. > > Now, if somebody has empirical data I'll certainly pay attention, or at > least a lot of expertise. However, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion > that swap is worse than ordinary disk writes - linux manages swap fairly > well all things considered. If you don't like how it is being managed > there are kernel settings that can be used to tweak it (swappiness, etc).
Yes you are completely right, but that is not the point I wanted to make. I just think avoiding any unnecessary disk access is the best solution as long there will be the bottleneck. Rgds Bernhard -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
