Why can't I stop swapping?!?!

[kerry_s]

Is zram going to help me figure out where the other 65% of my memory resources are being spent?

it's more than likely cache, if nothing needs the ram & you have lots of ram available it will use it. did the same thing when i had a 4gb ram laptop, it's nothing to be worry about it's a os speed trick to make apps feel faster.

unless your getting the gray dim screen, which it does when busy, just go on about your business & let the os do it's job allocating available resources.

what are you going to do with unused ram anyways ? such a waste just sitting there all empty.

[v3.xx]

Could we see the output of:

free -m

[holysword]

it's more than likely cache, if nothing needs the ram & you have lots of ram available it will use it. did the same thing when i had a 4gb ram laptop, it's nothing to be worry about it's a os speed trick to make apps feel faster.

unless your getting the gray dim screen, which it does when busy, just go on about your business & let the os do it's job allocating available resources.

what are you going to do with unused ram anyways ? such a waste just sitting there all empty.

It is not cache. It is not buffers. It is used memory. I use htop rather than top, and it clearly shows how much is allocated, how much is for cache and how much for buffers.
Also, I can't let the OS do "its job", because it is doing a bad job. Sometimes I have to wait 5s to wait the OS change the focus of an application (i.e. paginating things back and forth from the swap). Imagine coding like that.

Could we see the output of:

free -m

I will as soon as the memory fills in again.

[kerry_s]

are you leaving app's open for long periods of time ?
memory usually doesn't get released till the app closes, at least that's how it works for me.
i know some people who just never close apps, cause they don't like waiting for startup. lol

if your coding & only have 4gb ram, you should have gone with a lighter system to make the most of resources. standard ubuntu unity is what 600mb->800mb just startup, just opening chrome is like 250mb, add in a few tabs, they tend to be 100mb->130mb depending on content. i'm sure you get what i mean.


i'm using ubuntu-mate, my startup is like 250mb, i'd have to open every app i have on my launcher + at least 20 tabs in chrome just to reach 1 gig of use, with no apps open it usually hangs around 300mb.

[holysword]

Could we see the output of:

free -m

Here you go:

[ holysword@localhost ] [~] $ free -m             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3832       3346        485        271         27        525
-/+ buffers/cache:       2793       1039
Swap:         3975       1002       2973
[ holysword@localhost ] [~] $

if your coding & only have 4gb ram, you should have gone with a lighter system to make the most of resources.

I am actually using an unusual combo of E18 with plasma toolbars which goes to 240MiB~ memory use togheter, but thanks for the suggestion.


Still you are failing to see the problem. I am ***telling you***: Ctrl+C and CTRL+V the memory use from top, sum the thing up. It sum to 41%. Yet the memory use was 95% with half of my swap full. I am not asking how to use less resources, thank you very much. I am asking WHAT is using these extra unreported resources, how to find out, and how to disable it.

[kerry_s]

i understand.

if there is a app with a memory leak it's going to be hard to fine, they tend to not show on monitors.
basically it's a matter of trial, you just rule eack item out 1 at a time.
for example:
reboot the pc so nothings running but the desktop, note the ram level, don't open any apps, just let it set there. if the ram doesn't climb for no reason you know it's not the desktop enviroment.
next open 1 of your most used apps, again note ram level, if it don't climb, it's probably okay.
etc...

good luck to ya

[v3.xx]

-/+ buffers/cache: free = 1039

So you have a gig of ram available, but swap is kicking in.

Have you tried to set swappiness? I run mine with a setting of zero.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sw...I_change_it.3F

You could ( as a experiment) turn swap off and run like that for a while.
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/.../swapon.8.html

Are there leftover running processes? As pointed out, Chrome will do this.
Easy way to check is just use the 'System Monitor'.

I am actually using an unusual combo of E18 with plasma toolbars

I am not a user of plasma and only have played with Enlightenment, but got to say that that sounds like a awesome pair

[holysword]

So you have a gig of ram available, but swap is kicking in.

Have you tried to set swappiness? I run mine with a setting of zero.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sw...I_change_it.3F

You could ( as a experiment) turn swap off and run like that for a while.
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/.../swapon.8.html

Are there leftover running processes? As pointed out, Chrome will do this.
Easy way to check is just use the 'System Monitor'.

It helped but still there is something consuming my memory when it shouldn't. I am getting close to simply uninstalling Ubuntu and using another distro. This is stressful. Does Ubuntu use TMPFS or not in the end?

I am not a user of plasma and only have played with Enlightenment, but got to say that that sounds like a awesome pair

Its hard to beat the convenience of KIO and fish protocol (which apparently is supported only by Konqueror and KIO for some reason...) when working on remote files. Once you see it, you can't live with gedit anymore. Or I cannot at least xP

[v3.xx]

TMPFS, which would then easily fill 50% of the memory

My understanding is by default tmpfs (shm) is alocated 50% of system ram.

There is also a small possibility this could be graphic related. What kind of graphics and driver are you running?

Are you going to try running with swap off? Should be doable with 4G.

Have you tried looking through the system logs for errors?

I am getting close to simply uninstalling Ubuntu and using another distro

Are you by chance thinking Bodhi?

[holysword]

My understanding is by default tmpfs (shm) is alocated 50% of system ram.

There is also a small possibility this could be graphic related. What kind of graphics and driver are you running?

Are you going to try running with swap off? Should be doable with 4G.

Have you tried looking through the system logs for errors?

Are you by chance thinking Bodhi?

I don't think the swap is the problem. The problem is that... there is... something... consuming my resources...
(Don't say "chromium", please, we have already been through all of that).

I am trying to blame the TMPFS since I started this topic, since it does take 50% by default to "speed up" and I know well that doesn't match very nicely when you're doing anything which is very memory hungry.

So the question is (again), if Ubuntu uses TMPFS by default, how to disable it?