Some senseless babbling from Darin Mcbride to Mike Ruskai
on 19 Apr 98  22:47:32 about Beginlibpath?...
 DM> Like why I have an 8 meg swap (defaults to 2 meg) when I have 160 meg
 DM> of RAM.  (Mind you, that one is probably Java's fault...)
 
 MR> This is the "fault" of OS/2's design since version 3.
 DM> Well, no, not quite.  You see, I only start swapping when I run too
 DM> many (i.e., 2 or more) java apps, or a single one for too long.  If I
 DM> try to run Netscape and load a page using Java, too, then we'll leak
 DM> RAM like a sieve. 
You don't seem to understand.  If you are using Warp 3 or later, you will 
swap out 8MB after you boot without running a damn thing.  Any impression 
you have that this is caused by Java is completely mistaken.  My server 
machine sits next to me right now with 8MB worth of data swapped out.  It 
has 128MB of RAM, and has never run out since it was last booted (currently 
about 54MB free).  
Regardless of evidence and stories, what I've told you is a design fact, 
not speculation.
 MR> System libaries, rather than being unloaded when apps cease to use them, 
 MR> are pushed to the swapper forcefully instead.  It's faster to recall 
 MR> "active" code from the swapper than it is to load it.
 DM> These aren't system libraries.  They could be swapped to memory - and
 DM> usually ARE ... if there's room.  However, Java for OS/2 has serious
 DM> memory leaks (which they conveniently seem to ignore).  All of the
 DM> application's memory should be released even if the libraries (code and
 DM> RO segments) were left in memory.  It doesn't seem to work this way.
I haven't seen any leaks in Java myself, but that's besides the issue.  If 
you have a 8MB swap file, it is full of nothing but system libraries which 
were forcably swapped out.  The phrase "swapped to memory" has no meaning 
in OS/2.  Something is either in memory, or swapped to disk, if it is 
loaded.  System libraries since Warp v3 are not unloaded, but instead 
swapped, because they are accessed faster from the swap file than if they 
had to be reloaded when next used.  
Mike Ruskai SA/AG #1106
thanny@home.com
... Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit drinking.
--- Renegade v05-11 Exp
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