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When I open an application for which there is not enough memory, Ubuntu becomes unresponsive. The problem seems to arise from the way Ubuntu handles swap (as kswapd hogs CPU usage in such a situation). Other operating systems I've used such as Windows or Mac OS warn you when there is not enough RAM available but in Ubuntu the system becomes unresponsive for quite a while. Sometimes I have to restart the computer.

I've had this problem with various versions of Ubuntu from Hardy Heron and with several different computers with different RAM sizes.

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  • I don't think you can do anything as user here.
    – Byte Commander ♦
    Aug 1, 2016 at 19:13
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    OK, I'll ask the obvious. How much RAM do you have? What is your swapfile size set to? What size and how fast is your hard drive (5400/7200 rpm)? What flavor/version of 'buntu are you running?
    – heynnema
    Aug 1, 2016 at 19:48
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    Xubuntu 14.04, 4GB RAM, 3GB swap, SSD.
    – Reza
    Aug 2, 2016 at 17:28
  • @user.dz I've asked this elsewhere but never got an answer... when the comments get too long, and the system hasn't already asked us to move to chat, how can I force it to move to chat? Also, if you're just making a comment without @, doesn't the OP always get notified? (I didn't understand the >< around my name either.)
    – heynnema
    Dec 10, 2016 at 14:56
  • Reza did you ever get an answer to your question? I missed your original response because you didn't have @heynnema at the start of the comment. Let me know.
    – heynnema
    Dec 10, 2016 at 15:14

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

I use

sudo swapoff -a

to turn off the swap.

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    Please any reason why swapoff -a helps the situation?
    – George Udosen
    Jan 26, 2017 at 7:53

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