memory /swap question: possibly also tmpfs question

[Cheryl Homiak]

I am noticing that when I use 'free", lots of my 256Mg memory is being
used without swap hardly being touched. Is this normal?
i also have a problem that may be related. looking at messages during
bootup, I keep getting complaints about
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on tmpfs,
       or too many mounted file systems

I didn't even have tmpfs configured in my kernel, though I noticed I did
have a /etc/tmpfs and mounting tmpfs is included in
/etc/init.d/mountvirtfs and I think somewhere else that i haven't tracked
down yet. I don't particularly want to use tmpfs, but the only way to get
rid of the complaint 9though not really an eror) as to add the mount to my
/etc/fstab with /dev/shm (which does exist) and configure it into the
kernel. this didn't seem to change my performance any, and whenever I
checked with DF" /dev/shm (tmpfs) showed 0 percent. Is there a way I can
get rid of this completely on the user side or, if I'm stuck with it, make
it work properly? I'm suspecting this has something to do with my memory
being used and my swap not so much, though eventually swap does also get
used. but maybe I'm misunderstanding how swap and memory work.
Thanks.
--
Cheryl

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."