How to Change, Swap/Swappiness

Tutorials & Guides
1

Adjusting SWAP/SWAPPINESS

Swap by default in Zorin OS is set to 60%,
(This means your machine will swap at 40% of RAM capacity.( Excluding RAM Cache.)

  • To check what your setting of Swappiness, is set too

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

  • To check your your current Swap setting/usage:

free -m

  • To Change/Add/Edit Swappiness,

1st Open the file when your editor, In this case it is "nano",

sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Then scroll to the last line ( bottom) a you need to add the below line:

vm.swappiness=0
^^^(Add your desired setting, 10,15,20/etc)

Then Hold Ctrl & click x to save the changes.
Then y to confirm the changes.
Then Enter to Exit the file.
Then

reboot

-------------------- Notes ----------------------

  • Swappiness=0
    ^^^^^^^^^ ( only uses swap when absolutely needed.) Best for SSD.

  • Swappiness=20
    ^^^^^^^ ( will swap at 80% of your total RAM )

  • Swappiness=60
    ^^^^^^^ ( will swap at 40% of your total RAM )

  • Swappiness=100
    ^^^^^^ ( will swap all the time )

"Swap, Can & will use swap outside of these settings,
No matter what your Swappiness is set to."

Eg:
The default is "swappiness=60" ( set to help at 40% of RAM usage).
The machine is using 20%, & a program that needs 15% of RAM, Starts up, This equals 35%, but on startup, the computer new program may use 18% (Spike) Although you physically haven't used 40% or RAM,
The computer detects that it is getting close & preparers (sometimes writing swap prior to settings) to start swapping.

RAM Files that are moved to a Swap File are normally the least used program running ( being used).

  • Quote:
    "Unused RAM, is Wasted RAM"

So if possible, Best to upgrade the RAM Capacity.

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