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Re: why swap is important?



On Saturday 26 February 2005 00:26, j smith wrote:
> i have enough RAM, but Debian 3.0 installation screen
> says i'd better make a swap, why?

Because Debian is smarter than you ;D

Some compiles and other big tasks that can be crucial at times require huge 
amounts of memory, so don't just assume you're OK with what you've got.  
Although, you can be -- it's certainly possible to get by without swap if you 
have a few hundred megs of memory.

Another point though, is that Linux will make better use of whatever memory 
you do have, if it's able to offload things it doesn't need to swap space.

If you're really interested in the ins-and-outs of it, there have been long 
discussions on kerneltrap.org about the (lack of) need for swap.

-- 
Lee.



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