Not sure why that is, but I have 32 GB of RAM and I would like my system to utilize it as much as possible, but as you can see in the screenshot, the system is only using 5.66 GB of the physical RAM, but swap is still being used in a high number. Is this normal? Should I lower the swappiness to lower than 10? Should I let it be?
Thanks
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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It is probably normal. Don't decrease your swappiness too much.
I think it happened the following way:
See the "cached" ram is taking 19 gigs. Theese cached ram improves performance by keeping frequently used system files on ram. So the actual occupied amount of ram would be 5+19 ≈ 25gb. Thoose system files might be used more than other app's ram so that they have higher priority to be in ram. So at the time you opened certain other applications, the total ram usage including cached might be a little over the availiable ram and likely got swapped. The once swapped thing won't be cleared immediately or with any much priority. I often see swapped contents remain even after closing a bunch of apps which gave empty space in ram.
So its just normal but is it using swap without once opening enough apps to fill the availiable space with used+cached? If so I would also be concerned
Damn. I actually didn't even pay attention to the cached part, nor have I ever even known what it was for. Makes sense now. Thank you.