this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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Why does not having swap make the system less optimal? Considering obviously it has more than enough ram available.
Swap holds memory pages which are not currently used. Putting them out of the way will optimize the main RAM for normal operations.
It's not a huge difference on a modern fast system with lots of actual RAM but it can be felt on older systems and/or less RAM.
So it's not not having swap that makes the system "less optimal" but not having enough RAM if I understand correctly?
They go hand in hand. Given enough RAM you can keep the swap in RAM rather than on disk to make it faster, but you still need swap.
I'm confused, so if there's no swap, what is the system doing given enough RAM? What's the impact?
Perhaps this can help: https://chrisdown.name/2018/01/02/in-defence-of-swap.html