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From: Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux doesn't seem to manage memory very well
Date: Wed, 1 May 2024 09:53:55 -0500
Organization: TNet Consulting
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On 5/1/24 05:32, James Harris wrote:
> Not a question, just an observation.

There more to it than just the amount of free RAM.

> I say that Linux doesn't seem to handle memory well because my laptop 
> had 8GB RAM (which, frankly, Windows seems to find perfectly adequate 
> for a similar workload). Under Linux the RAM would fill up and then swap 
> space would be used. Then the machine would become largely unresponsive 
> - e.g. taking minutes to switch between windows.

Linux uses otherwise unused RAM for disk cache:

Link - Help! Linux ate my RAM!
  - https://www.linuxatemyram.com/

But using swap tells me that something else, not just Linux itself, is 
consuming / leaking memory.

> So I upgraded the RAM. It now has three times as much (i.e. 24GB)! But 
> even so, RAM has still steadily filled up until reaching the full 24GB. 
> What's more, it's now showing 4.8GB of swap space in use.

See what's using the swap.  That's going to be the offending process.

Run `top`
Hit the `f` key to add a field.
Scroll down to SWAP and hit the space ` ` key to turn the swap column on.
Hit the `s` key while still on SWAP to make it the sort column.
Hit the `q` key to go back to the main screen and see what's using swap.



-- 
Grant. . . .