Why is swap being used even though I have plenty of free RAM?

Swapping is only associated with times where your system is performing poorly because it happens at times when you are running out of usable RAM, which would slow your system down (or make it unstable) even if you didn’t have swap.

Can I run Linux without swap?

Without swap, the OS has no choice but to keep the modified private memory mappings associated with those services in RAM forever. That’s RAM that can never be used as disk cache. So you want swap whether you need it or not.

Is swap still necessary?

It is, however, always recommended to have a swap partition. Disk space is cheap. Set some of it aside as an overdraft for when your computer runs low on memory. If your computer is always low on memory and you are constantly using swap space, consider upgrading the memory on your computer.

How swap space is maintained in Linux?

Linux divides its physical RAM (random access memory) into chucks of memory called pages. Swapping is the process whereby a page of memory is copied to the preconfigured space on the hard disk, called swap space, to free up that page of memory.

What is swap cache?

A swap cache is nothing but a list of page table entries with one entry per physical page. Each entry corresponds to a swapped out page along with the information about the swap file in which the page is being held along with its exact location in the swap file.

Should you use swap?

Why is swap needed? If your system has RAM less than 1 GB, you must use swap as most applications would exhaust the RAM soon. If your system uses resource heavy applications like video editors, it would be a good idea to use some swap space as your RAM may be exhausted here.

How does swap work in Linux?

Swap is a space on a disk that is used when the amount of physical RAM memory is full. When a Linux system runs out of RAM, inactive pages are moved from the RAM to the swap space. Swap space can take the form of either a dedicated swap partition or a swap file.