I understand that a word processor faces greater challenges in cursor positioning than a simple text editor--that's why I write my documents in LaTeX :) As for

I understand that a word processor faces greater challenges in cursor positioning than a simple text editor--that's why I write my documents in LaTeX :) As for swap, I always figure that if you're hitting swap, you're dead. It's time to buy more RAM. I've had instances where running Firefox and a kernel compile at the same time on my 4 GB laptop turn it into an absolute thrashfest--I have to walk away for 15-30 minutes, because I cannot do anything at that point. Applications, even plain old xterm, are big enough that swapping them in and out makes the machine unusable.