Can I use swap memory?
Hi, I'm using Bazzite and previously had EndeavourOs installed. I have a linuxswap partition, but I don't think my system is using it at the moment. Is there a way to activate it? Thanks in advance!
14 Replies
Bazzite uses zram instead of swap by default.
do you have a specific reason to use swap over zram other than you were using it previously?
zram compresses used memory in RAM when needed instead of disk space with swap
no
can I set it up to use the amount of memory I had set for swap?
KDE partition manager tells me I have only 4gb set for zram, which is less than I want
zram is compressed ram, if this is a handheld or machine with 16gb ram its already optimized
if you have more ram you can change the value at your own risk (and has to be a multiplier of 1024)
thank you!
guessing it was a handheld you have
it's a laptop:
ah well the way zram works is that it compresses a section of the ram and it "reserves" 4gb for compression by default
if you got 16gb total ram you would not want it higher
if you got 32gb ram you could put it to 8gb (and if you got more i doubt you would have any use putting it higher)
people often mistake swap as "extra ram" but its not, its essentially just a place to shove whats needs to be in memory still to a slower medium temporarily
think of it as moving your clutter from 1 desk onto a chair so you have some space to work on your desk
compressed ram instead keeps everything in ram so its still fast to access if you did need that piece of memory all of a sudden again
which would be similar to one of those desks with a fold out plate, gives you some extra space to work with temporarily
“Free RAM” is an old meme that predates the word “meme.” The problem is that stuff like cryoutilities isn’t forthcoming about expanding swap, so people misconstrue its purpose and functionality/performance
gotcha, would you advise trying to increase my zram value?
think the image didn't go through
You have yet to tell me how much ram you got
5.66 GiB / 9.55 GiB (59%)
apologies, the screenshot with fastfetch didn't go through, thought it did
Increasing zram will do nothing for you
alright, that's good to know! huge thanks
At worst it will make your system perform worse since it will have to compress and uncompress all the time