From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from lists.gentoo.org ([140.105.134.102] helo=robin.gentoo.org) by nuthatch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1HSmJO-0004t6-RA for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:44:03 +0000 Received: from robin.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with SMTP id l2I3gESR025770; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:42:14 GMT Received: from smtp17.singnet.com.sg (smtp17.singnet.com.sg [165.21.6.27]) by robin.gentoo.org (8.14.0/8.14.0) with ESMTP id l2I3gCTu025765 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 03:42:13 GMT Received: from [192.168.0.118] (bb219-75-71-108.singnet.com.sg [219.75.71.108]) by smtp17.singnet.com.sg (8.13.8/8.13.6) with ESMTP id l2I3gALr025822 for ; Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:42:10 +0800 Message-ID: <45FCB512.8040903@singnet.com.sg> Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:42:10 +0800 From: "P.V.Anthony" User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Windows/20070221) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Is swap need when there is 4g of ram? References: <45F66A32.1050004@singnet.com.sg> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 3b0bd79f-05fe-4ca4-9f58-f4577e1cdfd8 X-Archives-Hash: ec769c205e4afabecb9df8c5f7f0c4f2 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 -- gentoo-amd64@gentoo.org mailing list