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On this day, 13-March-2007 10:30 PM, Duncan wrote: |
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> So in summary, four reasons to keep swap enabled: |
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> |
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> 1) Old kernels needed it for memory zone management. (N/A for a decently |
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> modern kernel, say 2.6.16 or newer.) |
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> |
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> 2) Memory mapped file flexibility. |
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> |
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> 3) tmpfs based PORTAGE_TMPDIR and friends is generally a MUCH more |
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> efficient use of several gigs of memory than turning off swap, but until |
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> you have I'd say 6 gigs memory minimum, you'll want to keep swap enabled |
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> if you do it. |
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> |
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> 4) Suspend to disk, aka hibernate, uses swap. |
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> |
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> #3 and possibly #4 are the important ones. |
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> |
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> OTOH, disabling swap entirely, by turning off that config option in |
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> kernel setup before compiling it, DOES significantly simplify kernel code |
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> and memory management. This was in fact the reason I had it off back |
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> when I had only a gig of memory. I had system stability issues due to |
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> unstable memory hardware (cheap memory) at the time, and I figured the |
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> less complicated kernel memory management was, the more stable the system |
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> was likely to be. I don't know if it made much of a difference, but it |
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> definitely wasn't LESS stable. (The memory zone issues did apply back |
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> then, but my hardware simply wasn't stable enough for that to be much of |
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> an issue.) |
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Thank you to all for advising on the swap issue. The information is very |
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useful and has helped me to make a decision. I am happy. |
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For the record, I am going with swap file of 4g. |
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Once again thank you all for the advice. |
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P.V.Anthony |
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-- |
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