Really broken and stupid would be how I would describe it. Typically is just han...

ValdikSS · on Oct 10, 2023

It has been fixed by MGLRU patchset since kernel 6.1. Do:

    cat > /etc/tmpfiles.d/mglru-min-ttl.conf <<EOF
    w-      /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/enabled          -       -       -       -       y
    w-      /sys/kernel/mm/lru_gen/min_ttl_ms       -       -       -       -       1000
    EOF

and reboot. I've been struggling with this issue, as many others, for years. Now I can run two VMs with 8 GB physical RAM and 5+ GB swapped, and it barely noticeable.

More information, although a bit outdated (pre-MGLRU): https://notes.valdikss.org.ru/linux-for-old-pc-from-2007/en/... Linux issue%3A poor performance under RAM shortage conditions

neurostimulant · on Oct 9, 2023

This is why I stopped having swap on my desktop. I prefer a clean death than prolonged agony.

mnw21cam · on Oct 9, 2023

Having no swap was no panacea, because all of the code sections of your running programs that are memory-mapped in effectively count as "available" clean pages that can be evicted when memory is tight, and they'll cause thrashing just as much as swap would. The solution is to OOM-kill processes before that happens.

neurostimulant · on Oct 10, 2023

Hmm, I personally hasn't experienced any trashing after disabling swap. Instead of the desktop freezing up or heavily lagging for a while until I somehow able to kill some apps to free some memory after 10 minutes struggling to open a terminal, after disabling swap, now it instantly crash back into the login screen when running out of memory.