Linux without swap

[Bob Elzer]

Do like suggested, create a file for swap.

Swap depends on what programs you run and what the programs require.

There is all sorts of reasons for programs to use memory, since memory
access is a lot faster the disk.

So maybe a program loads It's database in memory to get faster record lookup
and retrieval, if it's a big DB, you could run out of memory, or the program
could quit, who knows.

Maybe lots of users run multiple copies of the same program, the more copies
the more memory, again if there is no swap, then when you reach the limit
programs don't run.

It used to be you would create a swap space 2 to 3 times the amount of
memory you had, again depending on what programs the system will be running.

I still like to create a swap space at least as big as the memory I have.

You never know when I might load that entire sort into memory :-)


 

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] On Behalf Of
kitepilot at kitepilot.com
Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 5:25 AM
To: Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: Linux without swap

Number 1:
My understanding is that swap space will be useful even in high amounts of
ram, because buffers almost never used will land there.
It may not be a great help, but you apparently have more changes of being
hurt without swap. 

Number 2:
Use "Logical" partitions, and now you can bump the total to 16:
4 "Real" partitions and
4 "Logical" partitions per physical partition.
YMMV...   :)
ET 

 

 

 


Stephen writes: 

> I understand that swap is not as critical anymore with machines now 
> having 2, 4, and even larger amounts of Ram available. but aside from 
> being able to allow a more graceful recovery of a runaway process. how 
> needed is swap in a desktop machine?
> 
> reason i ask is I'm getting ready to try and cram a 3rd partition on a 
> macbook pro and the EFI boot schema it has can only deal with 4 
> partitions, but mac OSX has 2 of those and i have XP Pro in there as 
> well. and if i include swap space i will be at 5 not the limit of 4.
> 
> --
> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from 
> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
> 
> Stephen
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