Hi,

I just reformat and install with the Redhat 8.0 linux , everything
seems fine.

The problem is with the swap partition, it is NEVER get used, I can
swapoff it, no problem. Just that it's not used at all

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
# more /proc/swaps

Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/hda8 partition 522072 0 -2

--------------------------------------------------------------------
#fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 64 514048+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 65 5826 46283265 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 5827 7131 10482412+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 7132 9729 20868435 f Win95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 7132 8175 8385898+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 8176 8828 5245191 83 Linux
/dev/hda7 8829 8959 1052226 83 Linux
/dev/hda8 8960 9024 522081 82 Linux swap
---------------------------------------------------------------

Whats your /etc/fstab say?
Try reformatting it as a swap, my swap stopped working once so i just reformatted it as swap and it was working again
mkswap /dev/hda8

could simply be the RAM of your pc is sufficent for all the services and processes to use. I have only 200MB, I don't get to see it being used very often too.

Hello Dopfish


I try reformating it again as swap "mkswap /dev/hda8" but it didn't worked. Below is my /etc/fstab file

-----------------------------------------------
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults 1 1
LABEL=/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1 2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
LABEL=/home /home ext3 defaults 1 2
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
LABEL=/tmp /tmp ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/usr/local/squid /usr/local/squid/cache ext3 defaults 1 2
LABEL=/var /var ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hda8 swap swap defaults 0 0

------------------------------------------------

How much ram have you got and how much of it gets used?

Hello below is my output of "$cat /proc/meminfo" file.


----------------------------------------------
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 259768320 239251456 20516864 0 63852544 70922240
Swap: 534601728 0 534601728
MemTotal: 253680 kB
MemFree: 20036 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 62356 kB
Cached: 69260 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 141228 kB
Inact_dirty: 32464 kB
Inact_clean: 44512 kB
Inact_target: 43640 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 253680 kB
LowFree: 20036 kB
SwapTotal: 522072 kB
SwapFree: 522072 kB
Committed_AS: 137788 kB
-------------------------------------------------------

There's nothing wrong with that. You've 256 of RAM and about 50 is being used:

MemTotal: 253680 kB
MemFree: 20036 kB

Meaning you have 200 free. Why would you want swap to be used if the RAM is being used effectively?

Think you've maid a small mistake here... 20036 kB = +- 20 Mb != 200 Mb

So I think should start to swap, since 230 Mb is used...

Argh, I've missed an evil zero . Thanks mate!

Its a good thing when swap isn't being used, it does mean your RAM is being used efficiently. Just like on a server, if swap is ever touched, it means something is wrong or you need more physical RAM.

Yes, swap is rarely used unless the machine doesn't have much memory (below 64 MB) or is doing something very intensive.

Swap is an emergency measure, if the system is using it, it is near the red line performance wise.

None of my machines even touch the swap, not even the servers.

good to leave it turned on anyway, though, some programs behave strangely if they cant find a swap, even if it doesnt need to be used, they just like to know its there, i use two swap partitions (each one on a different disk), and i have 1.5G of ram, never even seen the swap touched, dont worry, thats normal

true, but if only you run out of ram and don't have any swap to back it up, DAMN! I had it once, don't ask me how it happened, but my swap partition wasn't mounted, well since I have only 128MB RAM, it was SloMo

Looks like no one is going to help how to activate my swap space. As my server is running squid proxy only. SO I need swap to be used by squid.
Any help????

Your system will use it when it is needed, there is no way to "activate" it before your system runs out of RAM. You wouldn't want to anyway, since it is much slower than true RAM.