Add Zram swap to firmware

[YoshiKill]

Hello, can you add Zram swap function to merlin firmware? Use it from web Gui is be better way.
To chose how many memory to use and what algorithm lz0/lz4/lztd.

[gnuton]

is there any proof that adding ZRam would be beneficial for small devices like these routers?

[YoshiKill]

is there any proof that adding ZRam would be beneficial for small devices like these routers?

i don't find any statistic proof that is show how Zram help or not help, but many people on openwrt with 512mb use it and happy with it, because any way its work better than usb swap with it low speed. In theory how its work, with normal power processor like in ax3000 v2 you can really up your ram from 512 to 812mb with out any problem. I use it to in my owrt router to with 512mb ram and its helps a lot with performance. Its really not feature for feature.

You can read this manual for example this some explanation about it, its in russian but you can transalate it with google: https://debianlive.ru/2023/06/zram-%D0%BD%D0%B0-openwrt-%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%B5%D0%BC-%D1%85%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8F%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5-%D0%BE%D0%B7%D1%83-%D1%80%D0%BE%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80/

https://debianlive.ru/2023/06/zram-%d0%b8-zswap-%d0%bd%d0%b0-debian-12-%d0%b4%d0%be%d0%b1%d0%b0%d0%b2%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0%b5%d0%bc-%d1%85%d0%b0%d0%bb%d1%8f%d0%b2%d0%bd%d0%be%d0%b5-%d0%be%d0%b7%d1%83/

[sskars2023]

Depends on the routers in which you enable it, if you are having a lot of devices connected it will help a lot as it will compress the applications in the RAM however the trade of is due to the compressing and decompressing needed if the router itself has a poor CPU you could have the opposite happen where CPU usage increases and it negatively affects the performance, nice to have the option but would be good if the feature could be disabled as well in some cases or the ability to change compression types

might be worth looking at ZSTD compression, its newer a good all rounder with good compression and not too heavy, agree though that it would be a nice feature to have