Not enough memory to open this page but plenty of ram

#Not enough memory to open this page but plenty of ram free

It's not like you reach a certain percentage of allocation then Linux starts swapping. It doesn't do this according to a definite cut-off. Once you have used up enough memory that there is not enough left for a smooth-running cache, Linux may decide to re-allocate some unused application memory from RAM to swap. How Linux uses swap (even more simplified)

#Not enough memory to open this page but plenty of ram free

On Linux, the free command reports it both ways - the first line includes cache in the used RAM column, and the second line includes cache (and buffers) in the free column. When you talk about free RAM, it's a lot more meaningful to include cache, because it practically is free - it's available should any application request it. The different operating systems might just report free RAM differently: some include the cache as part of what they consider 'free' and some may not. This is not a situation that is specific to Linux - all modern operating systems work this way. De-allocating cache is cheap and easy enough that it is simply done in real time - everything that sits in the cache is either just a second copy of something that's already on disk, so can just be deallocated instantly, or it's something that we would have had to flush to disk within the next few seconds anyway. Once applications claim more RAM, it simply goes into some of the space that was used by cache, shrinking the cache. In this situation, as long as your applications don't increase their memory use and the system isn't struggling to get enough space for cache, there is no need for any swap. Ideally, you have enough memory for all your applications, and you still have several hundred Mb left for cache. Both writing to disk and reading from disk can be sped up immensely by cache. This is a good thing - it helps speed things up heaps.

This includes the page cache, inode caches, etc. Linux uses all otherwise unoccupied memory (except for the last few Mb) as 'cache'. It is actually not as simple as it sounds in Linux (or any modern operating system).Д®ach application can use some of your memory. There are a few different aspects to your question.ДЇirstly, what your definition of 'free' is.

Run sudo sysctl -load=/etc/nf after editing the file to apply the changes If vm.swappiness does not exist, add it to the end of the file like so: vm.swappiness=10 Search for vm.swappiness and change its value as desired. To make a change permanent, edit the configuration file with your favorite editor: gksudo gedit /etc/nf To change the swappiness value A temporary change (lost on reboot) with a swappiness value of 10 can be made with sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10 To check the swappiness value cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

Note: Ubuntu server installations have different performance requirements to desktop systems, and the default value of 60 is likely more suitable. A value of swappiness=10 is recommended, but feel free to experiment. Reducing the default value of swappiness will probably improve overall performance for a typical Ubuntu desktop installation. The default setting in Ubuntu is swappiness=60. Swappiness=100 tells the kernel to aggressively swap processes out of physical memory and move them to swap cache For Kernel version 3.5 and newer it disables swappiness. Swappiness=0 tells the kernel to avoid swapping processes out of physical memory for as long as possible. Swappiness can have a value of between 0 and 100 Because disks are much slower than RAM, this can lead to slower response times for system and applications if processes are too aggressively moved out of memory. The swappiness parameter controls the tendency of the kernel to move processes out of physical memory and onto the swap disk. You could try changing your 'swappiness' value:ДЇrom the Ubuntu's Swap FAQ: What is swappiness and how do I change it?