Re: Swap space settings and other partitioning q's

From: J.O. Aho (user_at_example.net)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 14:49:35 +0100

Morningdew wrote:
> Morningdew wrote:
>
>>> I was just curious to know... What are some good rules of thumb for
>>> configuring swap space under Linux? For that matter, are there any
>
>
> J.O. Aho wrote:
>
>> Size for swap usually have been given as 1.5 to 2.5 times the size of
>> ram, everything depending on whom you are talking with and what distro
>> you use. I have settled for around 2 times the ram size, not that I
>> ever have had more use than a few MB of the 4GB swap.
>
>
> Wow, that's completely contradictory to what Paul Sherwin replied with,
> which is...
>
>> There is *no* direct relationship between physical memory and swapfile
>> size. These rules of thumb originated in the 70s when people had to
>> commission systems before knowing what the application mix would be.
>> The idea was that a system with a lot of memory would be used for
>> memory intensive applications, so should have a lot of swapspace as
>> well.

I don't really see any contradiction here, more that are quite on the same
track. In a normal usage, you don't need a hughe swap, but today the cost for
a GB harddrive space is quite low, so you can make a big swap even if you
won't ever be using it completly.

> Thats all cool. I'm not running a home net right now, though I have in
> the past. I suppose really much of these decisions depend on how you
> intend to use the system. Think for me it is desktop, mostly one user,
> with occasional family or guest logins under their own accounts.

I'm the main user on my home network, with some family members that may use it
from time to time, but that don't mean I want to configure each machine just
for fun.

This can be taken even futher, to use tftp to boot systems and use nfs to
access filesystems, this way you could have diskless systems, this makes the
coolness level to raise a lot. The coolest home made system I have seen
includes 3 computers, where one serves the other two as file server (nfs) and
boot media (tftp), quite cool IMHO. :)

> I assume that LVM is Logical Volume Manager or maybe Linux Volume
> Management, something like that? I don't know what that is, but I will
> look it up.

It's L as in Logical.

> Okay well here is a place where I get concerned, and don't want to mess
> things up. I mean, lots of configuration information for my user goes
> here, and I don't want to cause confusion for my programs. I guess I am
> worrying too much. For the most part I will be trying to keep my app
> installs between the two in sync. However, if I do have some
> differences between them this is where they'd likely collide, no?

I still haven't seen a program, say gimp that would have completly different
setting if it was compiled for 32bits or 64bits.

> But hey, the real goal is to run as much in 64-bit land as possible.
> It's just that a few things (proprietary binaries only released on
> 32-bit) are holding me back. Once I understand how to "mix" the
> environment up, I will abandon a straight 32-bit set-up. That is why I
> wrote the following.

A hasty checkup, showed that it don't matter that much if you mix 64 and 32
bits programs, as long as the binary and the plugin is of the same bits, so if
you use 32bits plugins for FireFox, then your FireFox must be 32bits too. Xorg
on the other hand could be 64bits, this much resebles of mixed gcc2 and gcc3
environments.
I think this will be well covered at the distros homepages that do supply both
32 and 64 bits versions of their distros.

  //Aho

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Swap space settings and other partitioning qs
    ... > Morningdew wrote: ... I have settled for around 2 times the ram size, ... >> ever have had more use than a few MB of the 4GB swap. ... I think this will be well covered at the distros homepages that do supply both ...
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