Re: [K12OSN] swap size
John Meissen (john@meissen.org)
Mon, 29 Apr 2002 10:48:09 -0700
dbentson@orion.lcsd.k12.wa.us said:
> The documentation I have says that I should have my SWAP space be the
> same size as my available RAM. But during the install, I wasn't sure
> how much ram I had so I guessed at 512MB. As it turns out, I only
> have 256 MB. Should I make changes?
I'd love to know where that rule of thumb came from. It's been
around for 20 years or more. In my opinion, it's completely wrong.
Swap space is used to free up memory for running applications in
low-memory situations by swapping sleeping apps or least-recently
accessed pages to disk. In general, the more memory you have the
less swap space gets used.
How much swap space you need depends on how much (or little) memory
you have and the number and types of applications you run. Graphically
intensive apps typically require lots of memory... console apps generally
don't. If you're running lots of X apps and you don't have much memory
you'll need more swap space.
Unless you need the disk space for other purposes there's nothing
wrong with having 512M of swap space. I always specify that much
these days regardless of how much memory I have, just because disk
space is cheap and I'd rather err on the side of caution.
john-
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