[gentoo-dev] Thanks! (kernel question)

Hello All Gentoo Developers!

I would like to introduce myself and thank everyone for the effort that
you have put into creating an exceptional GNU/Linux distribution.  I
have successfully installed Gentoo on a 900 MHz Anthlon, 128 MB mem, 40
GB hd, a 300 MHz Pentium II, 128 MB mem, 10 GB hd, and even an ageing
Pentium 166 MHz, 16 MB mem, 2 GB hd notebook.  I will try and sort
through my notes on getting Gentoo up and running on these machines and
post feedback comments to the group.  Hopefully, these will be of use to
someone.

I noticed  that Daniel had added linux-2.4.5-ac5 to the package.mask due
to lock up problems.  I have experienced similiar problems after my
kernel was inadvertenly upgraded while upgrading another package
(presumbly before 2.4.5 was added to package.mask).  The problem seemed
to be premature and runaway swappage, especially when dealing with large
files.  Reviewing the kernel mailing list indicates this to be a known
problem.  However, I do not experience the swapping problems with the
2.4.4-ac5 kernel. This brings me to my long-winded question.  The
consensus on the kernel mailing list seems to be that you need to have
swap=2*RAM for 2.4 kernels.  Unfortunately, I partitioned my drives with
swap=1*RAM (habit from the 2.2 series I suppose).  I would be interested
in how much swap relative to RAM other  gentoo users have partitioned
and whether they have been experiencing similar problems.  I need to
decide if I should repartition   for swap = 2 * RAM now to avoid
problems with future updates to the kernel.

Once again, thanks for the good work.

Tod Neidt