Bill Kenworthy wrote:
<< SNIP >>
5. Tune the kernel swappable parameter to either force most everything
to swap to keep ram free or the other way to make it less likely to swap
if thats whats needed. The current parameter is a compromise that works
in most cases, but there are uses that benefit one way or the other.
Lastly, to reiterate, disk space is cheap and putting aside 16Gb for
swap is a small price to pay for stability - you may only need it
occasionally, but then you will REALLY need it!
Have fun!
BillK
Just for notes, I have 2Gbs of ram. I have ~1Gb of swap. I don't think
I have ever seen it use over 100Mbs or so of swap since I built this
thing. Most of this depends on the programs you are using. If they use
more memory than you have, you need more swap. If not, then maybe not. ;-)
If you only want it to use swap when really needed, set it like this or
something close:
r...@smoker-new / # cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
20
r...@smoker-new / #
The lower the number, the more it tries not to use swap. The higher the
number, the more it will try to use swap. Since I rarely use more than
1Gb, compiling OOo may be a exception, I set mine to 20. My drives are
the old IDE and are not as fast as the new SATA drives. Use echo to
change that setting just in case you don't know already.
Hope that little bit of info helps. This is one of those "it depends"
situations. No matter what you set it up for, you will want to change
it later. :-)
Dale
:-) :-)
