Swap, swap, swap, and bad places to work

Re:Swap, swap, swap, and bad places to work by mrob on Friday August 09, 2019 @08:10AM (#20653552)

Using zram swap in a recent Debian is as simple as installing "zram-tools" (and changing the size in /etc/default/zramswap if you're not happy with the default).

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Re:Swap, swap, swap, and bad places to work by dredmorbius on Friday August 09, 2019 @09:13AM (#20653948)

... and knowing to do that. And knowing to do that over other methods.

Institutional knowledge, mindshare, and documentation are all Things.

Debian's documentation (Debian Administrator's Handbook, Debian Installation Guide, Debian FAQ) do not appear to mention either zram or zswap at all. DAH/DIG do mention swap configuration, but only in terms of traditional swap patterns.

There is mention on the Debian Wiki: https://wiki.debian.org/ZRam But not under the Swap topic: https://wiki.debian.org/Swap

"As easy as" really doesn't mean much if the information isn't accessible. It's also harder to to advocate if it's not at least mentioned in standard documentation.

If you're aware of any standard Linux documentation mentioning zram/zswap as options, please let me know.

Again: this is not an argument against the technical merits or advisibility of zram or zswap. It's an argument that knowledge of these options is not widely disseminated or assimilated. I'd commented recently on the matter of intergenerational knowledge transfer, both general and specific (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20617656). This would be a case of that.

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