Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second
display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that
Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does
it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is
open.

What is Swap?

If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful!

Thanks in advance,

David Paste.

"David Paste" wrote in message
...
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful!

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

+1. Just kill it occasionally to reset.


What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all.


NT

On 26/11/15 01:05, wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

+1. Just kill it occasionally to reset.


What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all.



Well actually you are.

Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used for
ages so it has more pages for disk cache.

It doesn't NEED to, but it does.




NT



--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 04:22:48 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 01:05, nt wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all.



Well actually you are.

Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used for
ages so it has more pages for disk cache.

It doesn't NEED to, but it does.

Depends on your system. I don't think I've ever seen this use swap.


NT

On 25/11/15 22:54, David Paste wrote:
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second
display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that
Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does
it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is
open.

What is Swap?

Swapping (and Paging) is a method to free RAM but writing out idle
memory pages (blocks) to disk and leaving a pointer instead. Due to the
magic of virtual memory, the address map for that process's page that
got swapped out is made invalid. When the process tries to access that
page, the virtual address hardware in the CPU finds and invalid pointer
and faults to an interrupt hander. That handler looks up the page and
decides if it is a) actually invalid (the process then generally is
terminated) or if the page is actually on disk.

It retrieves the page from disk (and sometimes a few consecutive pages
for good luck), puts them into RAM and updates the process's virtual
address tables. The process is allowed to resume, retrying the failed
instruction, which now works.


Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects
are much the same.

If you have boat loads of RAM you can not bother with a SWAP
partition/file. However SWAP is also used by Linux for hibernating (not
suspending, when the RAM is kept running but the CPU is stopped).

If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful!

Thanks in advance,

David Paste.

In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects
are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look
at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand
exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around
10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not
so good.

Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a
dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for
Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not
BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot
would work.
--
Graeme

On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and
effects are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look
at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand
exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around
10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not
so good.

Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a
dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for
Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not
BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot
would work.

It is not necessarily firefoxes fault. Its possible to write (malicious)
JavaScript that simply demands more and more memory

However when I showed a basic HTML5 video based web page to a friend
with windows 10, Edge blue screened the computer!

"I haven't seen that for a few years" he mused...


--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

"News" wrote in message
...
In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects
are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look
at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand
exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around
10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so
good.

Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped
it (and Pale Moon)

I haven't gone that far. I do still use Pale Moon for the main news
page and for 5 of the weather pages I have running all the time.

for Chrome

Yeah, that's what I use for the 3 problem weather pages that
see all the firefox type browsers fall on their face quite quickly.

Its also what I normally use on the iphone too.

Don't use it for everything tho, it's a very minimal
browser with no real session manager at all.

because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it
just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work.

Don't get that result on the main PC which has a lot more
horsepower than a netbook, but I do eventually see even
the most basic clicking on links and buttons in other windows
just stop working until I kill the problem Pale Moon process.

Only get that with 3 of the weather pages tho. Those just
show the radar and cloud pages as well as the main weather
page from that weather provider, so I only run those when
a front is coming over and I want to see when its about to
rain like hell and produce heavy rain and hail etc.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and
effects are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look
at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand
exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around
10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not
so good.

Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a
dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for
Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not
BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot
would work.

It is not necessarily firefoxes fault.

Sure, but the firefox derivatives dont handle those web pages very well at
all.

Its possible to write (malicious) JavaScript that simply demands more and
more memory

Yes, but in my case its just 3 of the weather pages from
a single weather provider that is the problem, so it clearly
isn't malicious. Just incompetent programming basically.

However when I showed a basic HTML5 video based web page to a friend with
windows 10, Edge blue screened the computer!

"I haven't seen that for a few years" he mused...

pamela wrote
Rod Speed wrote
David Paste wrote

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well
(I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful!

I don't use Firefox but I thought all those memory leaks and
resource problems it used to have years ago had been fixed.

Not with browsers.

They certianly needed fixing as they caused a lot of trouble for some
users.

Yeah, real pain with some web pages.

Sad to see Firefox still has such basic problems.

Yeah, it has driven the browser industry to some extent.

As an aside are you still using Samsung HDDs?

Yeah, still haven't bought anything else.

I haven't upgraded my PC in years

I did relatively recently.

and still use the same HDDs I bought years ago.

Yeah, I stopped buying more for the PVR files that I hadn't
got around to watching or cleaning up. I bought more
drives for years but decided that it didn’t make much
sense and have got off my arse and have been cleaning
up the PVR files to get rid of the stuff I have watched
and some of the stuff that I decided I would never watch.

Still have something like 10TB of stuff I likely wont ever watch.

I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for
low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be.

IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate.

I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know
if they still make HDDs without Googling.

Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of
their operation was bought by Seagate.

On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and
effects are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage?

I guess - I don't do windows But the OS principles are the same and
by its name, I suspect its the same.

I do look
at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand
exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around
10% which is probably OK,

Not probably - it's having a stroll, rather than a sprint

but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not
so good.

You need a windows person. Sometimes, it's better to page out large
amounts of dead memory that is never used (unused lumps of data or code
in a program, or at least "unused" in the context of what you are doing
right now) and use the space of disk buffers (cache).

There's also a method of paging that does not use the pagefile - at
least on linux. If you load a program and all its linked code libraries,
the whole lot gets mapped into the process's virtual address space.

However, it tends to not get read in until needed - this happens by the
program and the libraries being mapped as mini pagefiles into the
address maps, but not actually physically read in.

Program goes to the "print" routines (say), trips a page fault - that
causes the same paging code in the kernel to look for the page file
blocks (that this time happen to be the program or library file) and
read them in, resuming the program when done.

In the same way, not-recently-used blocks of the program can simply be
dropped from RAM (no need to write out - code is read-only, we already
have the original in the file) if the system thinks it needs RAM for
something else.

I have no idea if Windows employs that strategy - it's always been my
observation that linux handles memory better than windows, but that's a)
because I hate Windows, b) may be less true with the modern versions.



The fun happens if the kernel needs a page of RAM for its own use,
hasn't got any spare and needs to run the pager to free some, except the
pager needs some extra RAM to do its work.

Real problem - solved in part with the concept of "kernel non paged
pool" (locked pages of RAM that cannot be paged out).

Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a
dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for
Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not
BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot
would work.

I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for
low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be.

IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate.

I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know
if they still make HDDs without Googling.

Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of
their operation was bought by Seagate.

I use Samsung Evo Pro SSD drives, very fast and come with a 10 year
guarantee, Samsung must be very confident of the longevity, which is
reassuring.

--
Bod

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus

On 26/11/2015 04:22, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 01:05, wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

+1. Just kill it occasionally to reset.


What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile
space at all.



Well actually you are.

Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used for
ages so it has more pages for disk cache.

It doesn't NEED to, but it does.


Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it out.

On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 22:54:23 UTC, David Paste wrote:

display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that
Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does
it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is
open.

Firefox is a pig with ram. Even just lion there it uses elephantine amounts of it. Antyway, I just kill it when it gets to a gig - one day I expect the future equivalent of FF will use an even wilder amount, like a pet of ram.


NT

"pamela" wrote in message
...
On 10:41 26 Nov 2015, Rod Speed wrote:

pamela wrote
Rod Speed wrote
David Paste wrote

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well
(I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display
down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is
displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly
increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open.

Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms.

Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages.

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap
area.

If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful!

I don't use Firefox but I thought all those memory leaks and
resource problems it used to have years ago had been fixed.

Not with browsers.

They certianly needed fixing as they caused a lot of trouble for some
users.

Yeah, real pain with some web pages.

Sad to see Firefox still has such basic problems.

Yeah, it has driven the browser industry to some extent.

As an aside are you still using Samsung HDDs?

Yeah, still haven't bought anything else.

I haven't upgraded my PC in years

I did relatively recently.

and still use the same HDDs I bought years ago.

Yeah, I stopped buying more for the PVR files that I hadn't
got around to watching or cleaning up. I bought more
drives for years but decided that it didn’t make much
sense and have got off my arse and have been cleaning
up the PVR files to get rid of the stuff I have watched
and some of the stuff that I decided I would never watch.

Still have something like 10TB of stuff I likely wont ever watch.

Some years ago, when I was looking into glitches with my own Humax PVR,
I remember some folks were increasing the recording time of their PVR by
putting their own HDD.

I toyed with the idea of doing it too but never got round to it. 10TB is
impressive but I guess it gets swallowed up quickly if you start saving
HD movies.

Problem is that they aren't HD movies |-(

Almost entirely docos and SD.

I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for
low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be.

IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate.

I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know
if they still make HDDs without Googling.

Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of
their operation was bought by Seagate.

Didn't realise Samsung's HDD division had been taken over.
Must have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall when
Samsung's development team met Seagate's.

Seagate has always been very unusual in that area.

They just let the operation they take over carry on regardless
and just change the name on the drives produced. That's why
Seagate had so many models that look so similar in size but
are quite different in detail. I haven't bothered to check what
the new Seagate model numbers are because I havent needed
to buy any new drives since the takeover.

I guess those Samsung engineers were taught in house
and must have discovered some unique methods for
themselves to make their HDDs so quiet and cool.

I think it was more just a different emphasis.

Seagate drives in that era were notorious for getting stinking
hot in comparison when run loose on the desktop.

On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?

--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 23:08:52 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?

Have you never heard folk refer to 'windows ubuntu?' A classic response to drones asking what version of windows you have.


NT

On 25/11/15 22:54, David Paste wrote:
Hello all.

I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed
attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm
even considering buying an SSD for the machine).

I have some questions though:

[snip questions I can't answer]
Thanks in advance,

David Paste.


I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going
to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has
got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse.

I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full
install of ubuntu. An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a
very low price thanks to a bit of diy. I want to upgrade the SSD drive
(it's only 16Gig) and bought a cheap chinese drive which doesn't work
for reasons I don't understand, so beware.

The chinese SSD is now in a case so I can use it as a 120Gb pen drive
and it seems to work fine like that.

Best wishes,
Tim W

On 27/11/15 03:00, wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 23:08:52 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?

Have you never heard folk refer to 'windows ubuntu?'

Not once, ever.
I think you made that up.

A classic response to drones asking what version of windows you have.

They have drones that talk as well as fly?
Whatever next.



NT



--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On Friday, 27 November 2015 09:24:52 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 27/11/15 03:00, nt wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 23:08:52 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?

Have you never heard folk refer to 'windows ubuntu?'

Not once, ever.
I think you made that up.

A classic response to drones asking what version of windows you have.

They have drones that talk as well as fly?
Whatever next.

I think you need your morning coffee next


NT

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?


Well, since a Windows thread normally attracts people going on about
Linux maybe it's fair enough :-)
--
Chris French

On Wed, 25 Nov 2015 20:42:07 -0800, tabbypurr wrote:

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 04:22:48 UTC, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
On 26/11/15 01:05, nt wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap
area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile
space at all.



Well actually you are.

Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used
for ages so it has more pages for disk cache.

It doesn't NEED to, but it does.

Depends on your system. I don't think I've ever seen this use swap.

It depends on the 'swappiness' setting. I don't know what it's defaulted
to in the OP's case but Linux Mint 17 uses a default value of 60 which is
ok when the OS is installed onto HDD but way too high in the case of an
SSD. I had to manually change from 60 to the recommended setting of 1 to
minimise write/erase block wear.

You can check this setting by opening a terminal and typing (or pasting)
the following into the command line:

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

the result will be displayed (a 1 to 3 digit number) at the start of the
next line (values from 1 to 100). The default '60' is fine for an HDD
installation but, if the OP wants to install it to an SSD, he'd be well
advised to make sure it's set to 1 (I don't know how 'clever' the Ubuntu
installer is regarding SSD optimisations).

You can find comprehensive instructions dealing with SSD optimisations
he https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd

I take issue with his claim that the installers know to use AF aligned
partitions with SSDs. One would hope that the installer also knows to
align to Erase Block boundaries. A safe bet is to 'waste' the first 2MB
of disk space and start at LBA 512, a value that's guaranteed to align on
EB sizes from 16KB right up to 2MB. In fact, it's also a good default
with HDDs since it has been a good three decades since HDDs were small
enough for a mere 2MB of 'unusable space' to matter (in the case of my
very first HDD that would have wasted a massive 10% of the disk storage
capacity!).

By the time win7 came along, the autodetect between HDD and SSD to
implement a 2MB EB alignment probably had no such 'intelligence' at all.
My guess is that they simply applied a 2MB EB alignment regardless of
disk type. I suspect the *nix installers do exactly the same since it
doesn't harm performance on HDDs but is so critical with SSDs and a 4KB
alignment is assured with all drives, even the older models not using the
AF 4KB sector size.

There are quite few SSD optimisations on that page. The pertinent one,
btw, is number 10, "Limit swap wear". Interestingly, Firefox and Chrome/
Chromium settings get a mention too, "Limit the write actions of Firefox"
and "Limit the write actions of Chrome and Chromium". The Firefox
settings may also help mitigate the OP's problem (they'll be needed
anyway if he upgrades to an SSD).

HTH

--
Johnny B Good

On Thu, 26 Nov 2015 10:51:19 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:

On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts
writes

Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle
process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and
effects are much the same.

Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage?

I guess - I don't do windows But the OS principles are the same and
by its name, I suspect its the same.

I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to
understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is
hovering around 10% which is probably OK,

Not probably - it's having a stroll, rather than a sprint

but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good.

You need a windows person. Sometimes, it's better to page out large
amounts of dead memory that is never used (unused lumps of data or code
in a program, or at least "unused" in the context of what you are doing
right now) and use the space of disk buffers (cache).

There's also a method of paging that does not use the pagefile - at
least on linux. If you load a program and all its linked code libraries,
the whole lot gets mapped into the process's virtual address space.

However, it tends to not get read in until needed - this happens by the
program and the libraries being mapped as mini pagefiles into the
address maps, but not actually physically read in.

Program goes to the "print" routines (say), trips a page fault - that
causes the same paging code in the kernel to look for the page file
blocks (that this time happen to be the program or library file) and
read them in, resuming the program when done.

In the same way, not-recently-used blocks of the program can simply be
dropped from RAM (no need to write out - code is read-only, we already
have the original in the file) if the system thinks it needs RAM for
something else.

I have no idea if Windows employs that strategy - it's always been my
observation that linux handles memory better than windows, but that's a)
because I hate Windows, b) may be less true with the modern versions.

My impression, as a long time user of win2k and repairer of subsequent
****tier versions, is that they both use, more or less, the same paging
algorithms. The major difference being that *all* versions of NT based
windows use a page *file* rather than the higher performance swap
*partition*.

What's worse are the invented pagefile options available of which the
worst one (adjust pagefile size automatically - on the fly, both upwards
and downwards), is the default setting on new installs - including every
major OEM setup I've ever seen.

The other options are "System Managed" (whatever the **** that means)
and setting a minimum and a maximum size limit (there may be another one
but I'm just remembering this off the top of my head). On an HDD
installation, this default is really bad news since the constant resizing
activity magnifies the effect of file fragmentation as well as adding
extra overhead to the paging algorithm.

If you don't want your windows PC to become old and arthritic before its
time, you need to figure out what size pagefile you want and set the min
and max values to that size as the very first configuration change after
doing a clean install. This then gives you a (possibly completely - but
no guarantees on this) unfragmented fixed size pagefile which won't
aggravate the inevitable file fragmentation activity from ordinary
everyday use, further aggravated by the endless OS file churn due to a
never ending stream of updates and patches.

The use of SSDs has rather sidelined this deliberate misuse of the
paging mechanism to effect premature system performance loss in the name
of boosting the sales of new PC kit (it's the "Wintel Effect"). The
effect of file fragmentation on system performance is all but eliminated
in the case of an SSD installation so this deliberate 'accelerated aging'
policy no longer works for "Wintel" (it's still a good idea to set a
fixed size pagefile, if only to pep up the paging algorithm a little).

I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting
to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders
and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap
partition space. Luckily, you can over-ride the default automated
partitioning scheme used by the installer but it needs some familiarity
and an understanding of partitioning to get this reasonably right.

There is usually a "Guided Partitioning" option in modern day distro's
installers but I can't recall whether it offers to create a dedicated
swap partition or not since I use manual control to get what I want (mind
you, for a lot more reasons than just to make sure a dedicated swap
partition is created).


The fun happens if the kernel needs a page of RAM for its own use,
hasn't got any spare and needs to run the pager to free some, except the
pager needs some extra RAM to do its work.

Real problem - solved in part with the concept of "kernel non paged
pool" (locked pages of RAM that cannot be paged out).


I've edited win2k's registry to stop it paging kernel ram space along
with quite few other tuning tricks in the dim and distant past. If I had
to do a scratch install of win2k on real hardware, there's quite a bunch
of things I'd have to research yet again. :-(

--
Johnny B Good

On Saturday, 28 November 2015 01:13:47 UTC, Johnny B Good wrote:
On Wed, 25 Nov 2015 20:42:07 -0800, tabbypurr wrote:

On Thursday, 26 November 2015 04:22:48 UTC, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
On 26/11/15 01:05, nt wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message
...

What is Swap?

Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff
is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap
area.

Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile
space at all.



Well actually you are.

Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used
for ages so it has more pages for disk cache.

It doesn't NEED to, but it does.

Depends on your system. I don't think I've ever seen this use swap.

It depends on the 'swappiness' setting. I don't know what it's defaulted
to in the OP's case but Linux Mint 17 uses a default value of 60 which is
ok when the OS is installed onto HDD but way too high in the case of an
SSD. I had to manually change from 60 to the recommended setting of 1 to
minimise write/erase block wear.

You can check this setting by opening a terminal and typing (or pasting)
the following into the command line:

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

the result will be displayed (a 1 to 3 digit number) at the start of the
next line (values from 1 to 100). The default '60' is fine for an HDD
installation but, if the OP wants to install it to an SSD, he'd be well
advised to make sure it's set to 1 (I don't know how 'clever' the Ubuntu
installer is regarding SSD optimisations).

You can find comprehensive instructions dealing with SSD optimisations
he https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd

I take issue with his claim that the installers know to use AF aligned
partitions with SSDs. One would hope that the installer also knows to
align to Erase Block boundaries. A safe bet is to 'waste' the first 2MB
of disk space and start at LBA 512, a value that's guaranteed to align on
EB sizes from 16KB right up to 2MB. In fact, it's also a good default
with HDDs since it has been a good three decades since HDDs were small
enough for a mere 2MB of 'unusable space' to matter (in the case of my
very first HDD that would have wasted a massive 10% of the disk storage
capacity!).

By the time win7 came along, the autodetect between HDD and SSD to
implement a 2MB EB alignment probably had no such 'intelligence' at all.
My guess is that they simply applied a 2MB EB alignment regardless of
disk type. I suspect the *nix installers do exactly the same since it
doesn't harm performance on HDDs but is so critical with SSDs and a 4KB
alignment is assured with all drives, even the older models not using the
AF 4KB sector size.

There are quite few SSD optimisations on that page. The pertinent one,
btw, is number 10, "Limit swap wear". Interestingly, Firefox and Chrome/
Chromium settings get a mention too, "Limit the write actions of Firefox"
and "Limit the write actions of Chrome and Chromium". The Firefox
settings may also help mitigate the OP's problem (they'll be needed
anyway if he upgrades to an SSD).

HTH

SSDs can outlast intense OS use on default settings with journalling FSes etc. The early ones might have been more vulnerable I don't know.


NT

On 28/11/15 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:
I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting
to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders
and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap
partition space.

Well I dont remember deliberetaly creating it, but this linux mint
(Ubuntu derivative) has a swap partition.


--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On 28/11/15 03:09, wrote:
SSDs can outlast intense OS use on default settings with journalling
FSes etc. The early ones might have been more vulnerable I don't
know.


Basically yes. I looked at what my SSD ought to do, realised it was
better than what the old spinning rust typically did, installed it and
forgot about it.



--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On 28/11/15 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:

I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting
to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders
and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap
partition space. Luckily, you can over-ride the default automated
partitioning scheme used by the installer but it needs some familiarity
and an understanding of partitioning to get this reasonably right.

That's just stupid - and forgoes all the good unix principles.

Me: I use either:

/boot, / and /srv for data (and /home is mapped in the last one)

or /boot and LVM for everything else, which makes new installs alongside
the old easy.

I have not set up SWAP for some time now - having plenty of RAM. My
VMWare servers at work, all 190 odd no not use SWAP either[1] *unless*
it is probably of benefit (like a server once a day does a big batch
job, then quiesces for the rest of the time).

[1] Because all that swapping is being concentrated down onto one poor
SAN group. I find it better to over allocate RAM a bit and let VMWare do
its bubble and borrow thing between VMs.

On 27/11/2015 22:57, Chris French wrote:
In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?


Well, since a Windows thread normally attracts people going on about
Linux maybe it's fair enough :-)

Well TNP did say no OS uses swap if it has enough RAM which isn't true
for windows or linux under normal conditions. You have to explicitly
stop it using swop in both OSes. Other OSes may be different but I don't
know about everything like TNP does.

On 28/11/2015 03:09, wrote:

8

SSDs can outlast intense OS use on default settings with journalling
FSes etc. The early ones might have been more vulnerable I don't
know.

journalling filesystems aren't that much more intense than normal.
By default all they do is write to the log, update the FS, write to the
log. Some don't even do the second log write as they just replay the log
in the unlikely event of a crash. This makes them quicker in normal
operation but slower to recover.

Swap can be far more intense if it is happening and could be at the full
capacity of the SSD at a few tens of thousands of operations a second.

On 28/11/15 11:24, dennis@home wrote:
On 27/11/2015 22:57, Chris French wrote:
In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so
that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it
out.

Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu.
Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis?

Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about
Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows?


Well, since a Windows thread normally attracts people going on about
Linux maybe it's fair enough :-)

Well TNP did say no OS uses swap if it has enough RAM

No, I said the EXACT opposite.

I said that linux may still use swap even if it has plenty of RAM.


which isn't true
for windows or linux under normal conditions. You have to explicitly
stop it using swop in both OSes. Other OSes may be different but I don't
know about everything like TNP does.


--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

Thanks to you all for the info!

On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 11:06:52 AM UTC, Bod wrote:

I use Samsung Evo Pro SSD drives


What is the difference between the Pro and the Evo? (other than the
grey / orange square).

On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote:

I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going
to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has
got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse.

When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums,
the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I
like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he
wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't
help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed
to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't
care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their
heart's content.

There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not
idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that
clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't
minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way
found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by
some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness.

I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the
laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's
called, but it's not so important at the moment.

I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer
which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the
display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays
perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It
doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same
fonts, by the way!

The most important thing I did to make the desktop more
comfortable was to change the desktop background to my favourite
picture of the night sky! ha, simple things, eh?


I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full
install of Ubuntu.

Was that a difficult thing to do? Did you have to fettle any of
the innards - I have some vague notion that newer computers have
a special BIOS that can really bugger up swapping OSes.


An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a very low price thanks
to a bit of diy.

What is the screen like? There was a Chromebook which was renowned
for it's high quality screen.

Cheers!

On 01/12/15 14:54, David Paste wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote:

I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going
to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has
got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse.

When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums,
the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I
like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he
wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't
help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed
to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't
care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their
heart's content.

That's why mots people run linux MINT. Its ubuntu with a better desktop
- MATE and Cinnamon are very XP - Like


There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not
idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that
clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't
minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way
found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by
some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness.

I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the
laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's
called, but it's not so important at the moment.


That's a deep and tricky problem. A lot de3opends on how the drivers
actually behave.

I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer
which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the
display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays
perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It
doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same
fonts, by the way!

Hmm. I have pilfered so many fonts from so many places its hard to see
whats what.




--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.

On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 15:18:12 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

That's why mots people run linux MINT. Its ubuntu with a better desktop
- MATE and Cinnamon are very XP - Like

Yeah, my friend is very particular about things like that. As
much as he can he has the same layout and same apps on Linux and
Windows. I put it down to the sheer amount of weed he smokes and
the subsequent need to not make things unnecessarily tricky when
switching machines!


I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the
laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's
called, but it's not so important at the moment.


That's a deep and tricky problem. A lot de3opends on how the drivers
actually behave.

Yeah, it is becoming apparent the more I read! But I am sure
nibbling at it will eventually get rid of the problem!


Hmm. I have pilfered so many fonts from so many places its hard to see
whats what.

You need better fonts then ;-)

On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote:
There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not
idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that
clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't
minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way
found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by
some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness.

I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine.

Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left
hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up
a stupid amount of space.

Andy

Vir Campestris wrote:
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote:
There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not
idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that
clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't
minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way
found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by
some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness.

I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine.

Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left
hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up
a stupid amount of space.

So one edge is longer than the other edge? Must be a strange monitor!

--
Chris Green
·

On 28/11/2015 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:
What's worse are the invented pagefile options available of which the
worst one (adjust pagefile size automatically - on the fly, both upwards
and downwards), is the default setting on new installs - including every
major OEM setup I've ever seen.

The other options are "System Managed" (whatever the **** that means)
and setting a minimum and a maximum size limit (there may be another one
but I'm just remembering this off the top of my head). On an HDD
installation, this default is really bad news since the constant resizing
activity magnifies the effect of file fragmentation as well as adding
extra overhead to the paging algorithm.

The other day I was somewhat surprised to find a PC with about 40 GB of
page file. I doubt anyone would have anticipated that high a usage - so
in that particular case, allowing it to grow might have prevented the
system falling over. (Though whether that would have been just once, or
repeatedly, is difficult to guess.) However, given the scale of hard
disc drives, even allowing 100 GB dedicated wouldn't have much impact on
most modern machines not using SSDs. (Also questions your suggestion
that the default OEM install would end up adjusting the page file size
downwards. This was a default OEM install. Page file still vaster than
needed.)

I have many times set up a partition exclusively for paging (in
Windows). From memory, if you have two page files, traffic goes to the
one with most space left. So a small C: drive page file just to get
going and a large paging partition ends up using the partition for most
swaps.

--
Rod

On 01/12/15 21:33, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote:
There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not
idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that
clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't
minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way
found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by
some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness.

I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine.

Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left
hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up
a stupid amount of space.


Some plonker has decreed that the task bar here is on top,. and there is
an autohiding menu bar down the right hand side.

Oh that was me. For some reaoson Linux MATE allows me to make that choice...

Andy


--
the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly
diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential
survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations
into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with
what it actually is.