Swappines parameter (Ubuntu 15.10)

The swappiness parameter controls the tendency of the kernel to move processes out of physical memory and onto the swap disk. Because disks are much slower than RAM, this can lead to slower response times for system and applications if processes are too aggressively moved out of memory.

Check the swappiness value

To check the swappiness value, in the terminal type :

cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

Temporary change the swappiness value

To temporally (will lost on reboot) change the swappiness value, in the terminal type :

sudo sysctl vm.swappiness=10

To make a permanent change, edit the configuration file.

# Using kate text editor
gksudo kate /etc/sysctl.conf

# Using gedit text editor
gksudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

Add or edit to the end of the file the swappiness value of choice, default setting for ubuntu are 60.

vm.swappiness=10 

Save and reboot.

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