On Tue, Sep 4, 2018, 4:50 PM Evan Leibovitch via talk <
talk@gtalug.org> wrote:
I have a desktop that, to me, seems like it's running to swap just a little to often and coming back to RAM just a little slower than I'd like.
What are the ill effects, on a desktop, of lowering swappiness down from the default of 60?
Desktop freezing can be an issue if you don't get the ratios in line with the hw.
I've been considering this a bit for my own desktop. In order to mitigate possible write amplification issues on my SSD running RH F27, at this time I have 8gib ram with a 4gib swap. Apparently, on more modern systems, if you have greater than 2gib ram you are in a better position to play around with the checks and balances.
"Tuning vm.swappiness incorrectly may hurt performance, or may have a different impact between light and heavy workloads. Changes to this parameter should be made in small increments, and should be tested under the same conditions that the system normally operates."
On my M.2 Nvram in the same system running RH F28 where I let the system installer choose for me, I am experiencing certain display widget redrawing issues in that the widget is blacked out until the mouse hovers over it. However at this time and considering all the microcode updates for my MB in the last eight months, I'm unsure whether this is connected to the display drivers or the swap parameters.
I haven't had much time to hack around lately, but as I stabilize this build, I definitely don't use hibernate and suspend as they draw heavily on swap.