From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Dec 5 00:40:55 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BDF911065672 for ; Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:40:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (muon.cran.org.uk [66.246.138.153]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 927B28FC0C for ; Fri, 5 Dec 2008 00:40:55 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from bruce@cran.org.uk) Received: from muon.cran.org.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9B8819002; Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:40:53 -0500 (EST) X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (2008-06-10) on muon X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.2 required=8.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,RDNS_NONE autolearn=no version=3.2.5 Received: from tau (unknown [66.45.161.67]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by muon.cran.org.uk (Postfix) with ESMTPSA; Thu, 4 Dec 2008 19:40:53 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 16:40:48 -0800 From: Bruce Cran To: Frank Shute Message-ID: <20081204164048.1c3bf0fb@tau> In-Reply-To: <20081204231623.GA47441@melon.esperance-linux.co.uk> References: <1822530854-1228237014-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-916388807-@bxe1001.bisx.prodap.on.blackberry> <20081204231623.GA47441@melon.esperance-linux.co.uk> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.5.0 (GTK+ 2.14.4; i486-pc-linux-gnu) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "Anthony M. Rasat" , freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: To swap or not to swap X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:40:55 -0000 On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 23:16:23 +0000 Frank Shute wrote: > The alternative to not having swap is a machine that on occasion could > run out of memory. I don't know what happens in those circumstances > but I doubt if it's pretty. FreeBSD behaves fairly nicely when it runs out of memory: when I last checked it killed off the memory hog, as one might expect. There's an argument that the memory hog might just be your important database or something and the right course of action would be to panic and make sure someone gets alerted to the fact the machine's run out of memory; however the current behaviour seems good to me. -- Bruce Cran