[Hawkeye]

Would anyone be will to tell me exactly what applications like Panther Cache Cleaner are doing when they "Delete Virtual Memory swapfiles"?

I'd like both a practical explanation (e.g., what's happening and why this doesn't hurt open applications) as well as what commands in the terminal replicate this process.

I've been using PCC for some time now and I'd like to start understanding exactly what it's doing to my system.

Thanks!

[bradoesch]

I can give you the simple answer.

There are daily, weekly and monthly jobs that UNIX systems do. Since regular UNIX machines were meant to run 24/7, the jobs are scheduled to run at night when people wouldn't normally be using the machines. Since many home users shut down or sleep their machines for the night, these jobs don't get done. To manually run these cron jobs:

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

[Hawkeye]

Originally posted by bradoesch:
I can give you the simple answer.

There are daily, weekly and monthly jobs that UNIX systems do. Since regular UNIX machines were meant to run 24/7, the jobs are scheduled to run at night when people wouldn't normally be using the machines. Since many home users shut down or sleep their machines for the night, these jobs don't get done. To manually run these cron jobs:

sudo sh /etc/daily
sudo sh /etc/weekly
sudo sh /etc/monthly

Yes, Panther Cache Cleaner will perform these routines, but it will also perform a vast number of other functions. Besides those, PCC also includes a routine that specifically refers to cleaning the Virtual Memory swapfiles. That's what I'm curious about.

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by Hawkeye:
Yes, Panther Cache Cleaner will perform these routines, but it will also perform a vast number of other functions. Besides those, PCC also includes a routine that specifically refers to cleaning the Virtual Memory swapfiles. That's what I'm curious about.

Code:
[aorth@nacho: ~]$ ls /var/vm/
app_profile  swapfile1  swapfile3  swapfile5  swapfile7
swapfile0    swapfile2  swapfile4  swapfile6

Mystery solved.

[Hawkeye]

Originally posted by [APi]TheMan:

Code:
[aorth@nacho: ~]$ ls /var/vm/
app_profile  swapfile1  swapfile3  swapfile5  swapfile7
swapfile0    swapfile2  swapfile4  swapfile6

Mystery solved.

Does it really just delete swapfiles willy-nilly or is there some logic to it?

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by Hawkeye:
Does it really just delete swapfiles willy-nilly or is there some logic to it?

Hah! I dunno, good question.