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
Let it be. The people designing the OS most likely know better than you or anyone else in this thread. I know the urge to “tweak” things is strong, but some defaults are defaults for a good reason.
Pssshhh. I taught Torvalds how to code, how dare you. 😂
So it was @penquin all along!
Shut up, private.
Defaults are not always the best setting for a specific user or system. Defaults are often fail safe settings that should work on most systems out of the box. That does not mean other settings aren’t better on your system. Often you can tweak settings to get better results, that are best on YOUR machine and setup.
But only, if you know what you are doing, or if you want to learn about it.
This is the crux of it though. Sure you can tweak your system but the average users doesn’t know what they are doing or where to learn more.
I’m not even convinced OP knows what problem they’re trying to solve
This reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) Mozart quote where a student asked him to teach them how to write a symphony, and was told “start with something more simple and short, for one instrument”. The student complained “but you have been writing symphonies since you were a child!”. The reply: “yes, but I didn’t have to ask how”.
The application of this idea here is that for someone to know the requirements for their system to the degree that they can really be sure that the most typical suggestions are not sufficient for them, they probably have to understand how the kernel handles swap and RAM to an extent that they don’t really need to ask this question.
People are very ready to assume that their system is way out of the ordinary, but it probably isn’t.