Re: Swap space settings and other partitioning q's

From: Morningdew (yahooaddyismorning42dew_at_spam.free)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:15:12 -0600

(clipped all above here)
>> 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.
>

MY BAD, AHO!!! Oops! I missed a couple paragraphs in the quote from
Paul. It should have coninued with these two paragraphs. The last being
the "argument" I turned around.

> Modern Linux systems with lots of physical memory will almost never
> swap, unless you're doing something very unusual. If you find the
> system is swapping a lot, you should add more physical memory rather
> than fiddling around with swapspace, My main Linux server is currently
> using 778k of swapspace, and this is quite typical. Despite this,
> people keep configuring gigabytes of swapspace.
>
> You can always add a swap file later, which will keep you going until
> you upgrade memory.
>

What I got from that is that swap space was mostly not necessary, in
Paul's opinion. He stated that he is actually running some, but only
about 3/4 of a megabyte, as opposed to the approximate 1Gb I have
presently configured. That is like more than a factor or 10 smaller.
He never did say how much RAM he has, but, also according to him, that
is irrelevant.

>> Thats all cool. I'm not running a home net right now, though I have...
(clip)
>
> 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. :)
>

He he... What I was getting at is that there is only the one physical
box up and running here. My brothers moved out and took their boxes
with them. My dad's computer bit the dust, and so my mom's friend gave
her an "old" motherboard but it is actually newer than my dad's, and
uses newer memory also. I cobbled together the other hardware from my
dad's box and the new mobo, but they (my folks) need the cash to get the
ram and a few other odds and ends before it can breathe life. When they
do, I am pretty sure my dad will want to run Windows on it. Mostly
because it's what he knows and does not want to learn something new
after all these years. My mom could care less which OS so long as she
knew where to click to browse and access her bank account websites,
where to click to play Bejeweled (or Gweled on Linux) and a couple other
simple games, like solitaire and majong, and where to click to load
Thunderbird for her email. Beyond that she is completely non-technical
and not likely to ever want to be.

>> 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.

Thanks. I have not read up on that yet, been distracted. But I saved a
google page in my "to do" bookmark folder so I don't forget. My
intuition tells me that this might be very cool.

>> Okay well here is a place where I get concerned, and don't want to
(clip... Concerns about sharing home directory between roots)
>
> 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

Yeah, I have been looking some more too. This Athalon64 is really a
very cool chip. I am quite happy I plunked my money on it. I think I
can debbootstrap (or something) my existing 32-bit root and make it be a
chroot for the 64-bit install. I don't know. I think I am going to
just dive right in and play with this until I get something that works
for me. Sometimes the best way to learn is to get your hands all dirty!

Thanks again Aho!

  -~Mornindgew~-

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