Does increasing RAM 512 MB -> 1 GB lead to better performance?
I'm thinking of upgrading my i686 system (Intel Celeron, 1.8
GHz) from 512 MB RAM to 1GB (it uses PC133 SDRAM DIMM
modules). I'm assuming this upgrade will give me better
speed and performance.
However, the memory module maker Kingston says that most
operating systems are optimized for a set range of RAM;
adding more RAM, to the extent that that's possible, may
not necessarily improve performance.
I'm running Debian sarge with KDE, and I often keep more
than half a dozen apps open at any given time (one or two
browsers, news reader, news aggregator, IRC client, file
manager, azureus, editor, streamtuner, etc.). At times the
system gets to be a little sluggish.
What is the behavior of Debian sarge? Would it run better
on an i686 system if RAM is increased from 512 MB to 1 GB?
Of course, if I had 1 GB RAM available I could also install
one of the Linux live CD's (e.g. slax) on a big RAM drive
and run it from there, presumably with good speed.
Another question: If I increase RAM to 1 GB, should I also
increase the size of the swap partition (currently 0.5 GB)
and how much?
Robert
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