Re: [gentoo-user] {OT} SSD instead of RAID1?

[Grant <emailgrant@gmail.com>]

>> OK, that's right.  How can I find out if 4GB RAM (the current amount)
>> is enough?  From what I understand of how Linux handles memory, it
>> will fill it up as quickly as possible, and then free it as necessary.
>>  This makes it difficult to determine how much RAM is necessary from
>> watching top.
>
> top lies. This has been discussed here many times. All your memory tools
> essentially tell you how much memory an app is able to see into, and most of
> that memory is shared with other stuff (like libs).
>
> You can't tell how much memory an app is using in any meaningful way, you are
> not supposed to even look at it as it changes millions of times a second. What
> you are supposed to do is select an allocation algorithm that works well for
> you in practice and let the kernel do the heavy lifting.
>
> Yes, the kernel does grab as much memory as it can for buffers and cache, then
> release it on demands. All modern operating systems have done this for many
> years - Linux just doesn't try and hide that fact from you :-)
>
>> I read on this list that the kernel needs *some* swap, even just a
>> tiny amount, to function properly.  Is that true?  If so, do you think
>> it would be OK to put this tiny amount of swap on a cheap SSD?
>
> Not true. I have machines with zero swap and they work just fine. I am utterly
> unconcerned with out of memory conditions as whether you have swap or not,
> when virtual memory runs out, either way you have a horrible cockup that is
> hard to fix. Then there's the oom-killer that comes along, stomps all over
> everything and just makes it worse.

Sounds good.  Will commenting the swap line out of /etc/fstab and
rebooting disable swap?  In order to resize the root partition to
include the swap paritition, I'll have to boot to LiveCD right?

- Grant