Ubuntu does not use swap space

[carbon9]

Hi,

I'm trying to run a heavy physics software that requires much memory on the PC. I'm using Ubuntu 8.0 32-bit. I have 2GB RAM and 9GB swap space. When I run the program, the total RAM usage rapidly becomes 2GB and then the program gives the error: Out of memory and it stops. However, I expect to utilize swap space but it seems that I have to tell Ubuntu to be able to use swap space when RAM is finished. How can I solve this problem?

Cheers,
carbon9

[MikeTbob]

Hello and Welcome.
Open a terminal window and issue this command.

free

It will tell you if the swap is even being used at all. Another thing, I think 9GB of swap is a bit much, but if you think you need that much then that's ok. You should not have to "tell Ubuntu to use the swap space" as long as the swap space is active and running.

[D-cat]

The old swap format didn't address more than 2 GB anyway. I don't know if the current swap format can, I've never tried it.

I use XOSview to watch the memory usage and other things. I don't think ubuntu installs it by default, but it's easily to install via Synaptic. It's good for watching just how much usage you have at the point something fails.

If need be, it is also possible to create a swapfile, instructions are in the man pages, I think in man mkswapfs... I'm being rushed, sorry for the lack of detail.