this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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swap feels like cheating

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Windows has swap too though

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

yeah, in poweshell type Enable-MMAgent -MemoryCompression

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

That's not that same. That's closer to Zswap. "Enable-MMAgent -MemoryCompression" enables compressing inactive memory pages in RAM. Zram is 1 or more compressed block devices in RAM that can store a much larger variety of data.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Yeah, I remember using ramdrive.sys in the DOS days to make a drive letter in memory to speed up our CAD software. My point was windows has similar tools for memory compression and drives, just that it is not as easily tinkeres with like Linux.

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

And the next question, can you make a RAM drive? Yes ImDisk. Even DOS had ramdrive.sys

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Zram offers way more flexibility and versatility compared to ImDisk.
Zram can be used for swap space or as a general-purpose RAM disk. Unlike a traditional RAM drive, Zram can compress data using a nice hand full of algorithms, notably Zstd; allowing it to store more information within the same RAM capacity leading to faster I/O and efficient memory usage with minimal CPU usage; & LZO-RLE; offering the fastest compression and decompression speeds leading to faster data swapping between compressed and uncompressed states, potentially improving overall system performance. Also, ImDisk afaik only offers NTFS compression for RAM drives which is... well.. pretty damn slow for this particular use comparatively.
Additionally, Zram persistence can be configured with writeback devices. ImDisk typically doesn't offer persistence.
ramdrive.sys isn't even worth talking about, it never had any kind of compression let alone anything else I mentioned previously.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

These things exist in windows (or as 3 party tool like RAWcopy etc for writeback) its just their OS is not setup to make tinkering a simple matter like in Linux. You don't have to convince me as I'm already a Linux household since Windows10 came out. But the post was claiming Linux was superior because of Swap...Windows has this, so the meme is a bad one

[โ€“] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Windows does have memory compression, though you can't really change the algorithm or how aggressive it is. AFAIK it is just a toggle of on or off.

[โ€“] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Zram is very different. What Windows has is closer to Zswap.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

If you use swap (excluding hibernation) it means you need more ram.