Re: partitioning revisited
On Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 03:02:57AM -0700, Karsten M. Self wrote:
<SNIP>
> - Swapping sucks.
> - Running out of memory sucks more.
> - Repartitioning sucks most.
>
> There's also a lot of obsolete data floating around about GNU/Linux in
> general.
I have a question that seems appropriate here. In the newer 2.4.x kernels
there's an issue with swap, correct? I have noticed this with the last
2.4.6 kernel I built, and the 2.4.5 before that. Some nasty javascript
would chew up a whack of memory, and then some swap would be used. The
process would be killed eventually, but the swap was _not_ freed. I had
to manually swapoff and swapon to free it, and this was only marginally
preferable to rebooting.
<SNIP>
> > b: "You must have a swap file 2x ram"
>
> Not true. But a good rule of thumb.
<SNIP>
> The old 2x RAM rule of thumb is still a pretty good one. Everyone's got
> more memory these days (and it's damned cheap for current
> architectures), but programs and systems are getting bigger.
>
> I actually prefer to give my systems about 2x the maximum possible
> memory as swap, even if this means they've got 3-4x memory. Reason
> being that it's far easier to add memory (drop the system, pop the case,
> squeeze the sticks in) than it is to repartition (back up, verify, back
> up again, verify again, repartition, reformat, restore, verify). As for
> sizing swap, I've got partitions variously of 132 MB, 128 MB, and 486
> MB, on various systems.
Again, how does this relate to the above swap "feature" in the 2.4.x kernels
that are AFAIK not yet "fixed"? If this has been fixed, please let me know
as I have been checking the changelogs at kernel.org, and seen no mention
of swap issues being addressed in the last little while.
TIA,
--
Mike Pfleger
There's seventy brilliant people on earth.
Where are they hiding?
"Yashar" -Cabaret Voltaire (off of "2x45")
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