virtual memory/page file

Hi everyone, I've had my AAOlinux for a day now and I would like o know does linux use virtual memory like windows? and if so does it need it because virtual memory ruins ssd's so I'd like to switch it off if possible?

Daz

 

Yes it does have virtual memory like windows. It's called "swap space" or a "swap file" in Linux.

Unlike Windows though, Linux is less likely to use it unless it really has to. So unless you actually exceed your physical memory, swap won't be used much and you won't wear down the SSD. An upgrade to 1.5GB of memory can also help greatly.

My Aspire One 110 is currently running Windows XP with 1.5GB RAM and a 32GB SSD (which I installed yesterday). I have disabled the Windows page file for XP, but when my system was running Linux (I replaced the original Linux with my own installation), I moved the swap into a file on an SD card permanently mounted in the left-side slot. It made me feel better about not wearing down the internal 8GB drive, although I don't know why I worried at the time because the original SSD is so uselessly slow I should have known I would get sick of it and replace it at some point. And honestly by the time you wear your SSD down due to excessive writes, you'll have probably binned the Aspire One and bought something newer anyway.

 

Really, is it that bad? I've got 1 gig ram and 16 gig ssd, I have noticed its been a little slow lately (well, only had it 1 week) but I was wondering if that was because I had messed up with some of the tweaks id done incorrectly, I've just reinstalled the OS and gonna start again, the slowness was starting to annoy me so i bit the bullet and started afresh, I'm having loads of trouble installing vlc player though, 1st time I did it it worked fine but the second and third time didnt work so I'm doing it again afresh.

cheers for the reply.

Daz

Right, I've got everything set up perfect now (hopefully) and I was wondering if there is anyway of making a backup copy of my system say onto my usb pen drive which has the linpus back up copy on it. is there anyway of doing this, in the advanced menu I've noticed a Recovery XP option but nothing happens when I click on it, whats this for, any idea's?

 

Oh you must have a newer model with more space on the SSD. I'm not sure how fast yours is - it could well be just as fast as the 32GB unit I have in mine for all I know. It was only the original 8GB SSD which I know to be really slow.

Not sure about your issues with installing VLC player in Linpus - I junked Linpus pretty much straight away because the Acer updates and the Fedora package repository weren't in sync and updates from one would mess up the other. If you want to stick with Linux I'd recommend Ubuntu Netbook Remix (google it for more info).

As for backups, there are many ways to do it in Linux. So many in fact that I couldn't pick one! Again, your best bet is to Google this and sift through all the results until you find one that works for you.