[CS-FSLUG] Oh man

[Nathan T.]

On the topic of swap space and ram, I have 512 Mb of ram, but a high
percentage of it is in use all the time, my swap space is always taken
up at least 3% despite my ram not being completely used up yet.

It was my understanding that the swap was used when the ram was full,
it was a hard disk space used just like ram in case the actual ram was
filled up. Why then does the ram always seem filled most of the way
whether I'm using a computer with 128 Mb of ram, or a computer with
512 Mb of ram, and why is the swap in use when my ram isn't full yet
but my computer will work without a swap partition if I choose not to
have one?

With 512 Mb of ram, I really don't notice if I don't have a swap
partition, but I'm still curious as the behaviour of Linux depending
on the size of the ram and the existence of the swap partition.