Applications using hard disk too often

[Michael Tuchman]

I am running freeBSD 5.4 stable on a P133 box with 128 Mb ram.  Although 
I don't think I'm overloading the system, it seems that my system is 
using virtual memory too often.   Admittedly, this is a subjective 
question where 'too often' means only 'more often than I remember with 
other *nix-like operating environments on even weaker machines'.

Can anybody offer advice on memory management, appropriate places to 
read in the documentation, or other useful links?

I realize that the answer is 'it depends', so what I am asking is really
* How can I find out if I change this annoying behavior for the better?
* Would upgrading to 6.0 help?

This is an experimental box only.  There is no critical data on it, so 
data loss is not an issue when considering options.