Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Is swap need when there is 4g of ram?

["P.V.Anthony" <pvantony@singnet.com.sg>]

On this day, 13-March-2007 10:30 PM,  Duncan wrote:
> So in summary, four reasons to keep swap enabled:
> 
> 1) Old kernels needed it for memory zone management.  (N/A for a decently 
> modern kernel, say 2.6.16 or newer.)
> 
> 2) Memory mapped file flexibility.
> 
> 3) tmpfs based PORTAGE_TMPDIR and friends is generally a MUCH more 
> efficient use of several gigs of memory than turning off swap, but until 
> you have I'd say 6 gigs memory minimum, you'll want to keep swap enabled 
> if you do it.
> 
> 4) Suspend to disk, aka hibernate, uses swap.
> 
> #3 and possibly #4 are the important ones.
> 
> OTOH, disabling swap entirely, by turning off that config option in 
> kernel setup before compiling it, DOES significantly simplify kernel code 
> and memory management.  This was in fact the reason I had it off back 
> when I had only a gig of memory.  I had system stability issues due to 
> unstable memory hardware (cheap memory) at the time, and I figured the 
> less complicated kernel memory management was, the more stable the system 
> was likely to be.  I don't know if it made much of a difference, but it 
> definitely wasn't LESS stable.  (The memory zone issues did apply back 
> then, but my hardware simply wasn't stable enough for that to be much of 
> an issue.)

Thank you to all for advising on the swap issue. The information is very 
useful and has helped me to make a decision. I am happy.

For the record, I am going with swap file of 4g.

Once again thank you all for the advice.

P.V.Anthony

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