Re:Do we really need swap on modern systems?
by jstimpfle on Friday February 24, 2017 @07:01AM
(#13722824)
> Making the system run slower is almost always better than killing processes at random.
In practice, heavy swapping (forth and back) makes it impossible to even kill the culprit manually (because I can't open an xterm or whatever). While there is often no benefit to have the processes continue running that slow.
Also, idealistically programs should be written with the assumption that the machine could go down at any instant. Having a few more cases where the program is killed will have the effect that the program is better tested and debugged.
In practice, heavy swapping (forth and back) makes it impossible to even kill the culprit manually (because I can't open an xterm or whatever). While there is often no benefit to have the processes continue running that slow.
Also, idealistically programs should be written with the assumption that the machine could go down at any instant. Having a few more cases where the program is killed will have the effect that the program is better tested and debugged.