Who's MCE? Ward
On Sunday, December 22, 2002, at 10:34 AM, Jerry Yeager wrote: > That is what your critter is wanting to use, so if you take the space > away, it thinks the world has suddenly tilted. I think MCE will swap > your old drive out for a newer, bigger one (mirroring the data that is > currently on the old onto the new one, and if you want also swap the > DVD/CD for a DVD/CD-Burner) all for a fee of course. > > I must beg your pardon. I based my typings on Terminal from some of > the comments that I have received from folks that never used a command > line before... > > Jerry > > On Sunday, December 22, 2002, at 09:33 AM, Dan Crutcher wrote: > >> Jerry: >> >> Here's what I get when I type "top" in the terminal (by the way, I'm >> not the guy that hates the terminal; I think that's Ward -- I'm just >> purely ignorant of it): >> >> MemRegions: num = 4998, resident = 92.9M + 13.8M private, ?110M shared >> PhysMem: ?46.9M wired, ?108M active, ?275M inactive, ?429M used, >> 82.7M free >> VM: 1.89G + 3.62M ??13087(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts ??? >> >> No pageouts, so I guess that's good. Right now I have 652 MB of free >> space on my hard drive. >> >> So what does all this tell you about my system? Is it really using >> 1.89 GB of virtual memory? >> >> Dan >> >> >Yup, you found it. OS-X does use virtual memory via the hard drive. >> >When you start up it looks at how much physical RAM you have, >> >how much free hard drive space you have available and then >> >through some arcane formula previously known only to alchemists >> >decides on how much hard drive to set aside as virtual memory. >> > >> >I know you hate the Terminal, but humor me this once... (smile) >> >open Terminal and type the command: >> > >> >top >> > >> >then hit return >> > >> >toward the top of the page get back you might see something >> >like: >> > >> >MemRegions: num = 3220, resident = 60.7M + 9.20M private, 76.5M >> shared >> >PhysMem: ?43.0M wired, 92.8M active, ?177M inactive, ?313M used, >> ?303M free >> >VM: 2.61G + 63.9M ??9907(0) pageins, 0(0) pageouts ??? >> > >> >This is the virtual memory amount that has been set aside. if >> >for some reason, drive space is low, OS-X gets very cranky. (I >> >guess the alchemists didn't think about how cranky a machine >> >can get, sicne this was also the dawning of logical >> >positivism). >> > >> >Side note: If you see the pageouts number getting big, that >> >means your system is, well, under stress as it is saving memory >> >segments out to the drive (another reason why you want to use >> >the shutdown option rather than turning the machine off !!) >> > >> > Jerry >> > >> >On Sunday, December 22, 2002, at 12:17 ?AM, Dan Crutcher wrote: >> > >> > >> >I'm still trying to figure out my recent problems with X (which >> >were cured eventually by a reinstall) and I may have found a >> >clue. I again experienced some of the same symptoms, though not >> >nearly so bad this time. And it happened in a situation very >> >similar to the one a few days ago. >> > >> >There are at least two factors that were the same on both >> >occasions: I had booted into OS 9 and I had performed an >> >operation that created large files that nearly filled up my >> >hard drive. When I tried to boot back into X (this time 2.1.3), >> >I found that my desktop was unstable. The icons and the date >> >and time on the right side of the menu bar were flashing on and >> >off; my desktop icons had resized themselves to the default >> >size (I had set them at 32x32) and the dock had returned to its >> >default size and it was no longer hidden. >> > >> >Before the operation that nearly filled up my hard drive >> >(postscripting some Quark pages that had large graphic links), >> >I had about 1.0 GB of free space (on an 18.6 GB drive). After >> >creating the new files I had about 135 MB of space left. This >> >was the case each time that I encountered the problem. >> > >> >This time my system seemed to work more or less normally with >> >the exception of the weird desktop stuff mentioned above, so I >> >immediately deleted about 500 MB worth of files -- and >> >immediately after doing so, my date, time and menu bar icons >> >reappeared and no longer flashed on and off. I reset my icons >> >and dock to their previous settings and restarted, and >> >everything seems to be working fine now. >> > >> >It appears that, on my system at least, OS X gets real cranky >> >when I don't leave it plenty of hard drive space to play with. >> >Any idea why that might be the case? X doesn't have a virtual >> >memory setting like previous versions did, but I'm wondering if >> >it doesn't reserve some hard drive space for use as virtual >> >memory. I have 512 MB of RAM, if that makes any difference. >> > >> >Any thoughts on this? >> > >> >Dan >> > >> > -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4688 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.math.louisville.edu/pipermail/macgroup/attachments/20021222/3045b36e/attachment.bin
