[Scottish] Swap partitions -- do modern boxen really need them? Discuss

[Kyle Gordon]

On Wednesday 16 July 2003 12:20, Kevin McDermott wrote:
> * Kyle Gordon <kyle@lodge.glasgownet.com> [Jul 16. 2003 12:15]:
> > On a slightly related note, with the new 2.6 kernel you now get suspend
> > to swap. This can be slightly problematic if you have less swap than (in
> > use) RAM
> >
> > I see your point though, 2xRAM swap does seem slightly excessive, and is
> > probably useless, unless you have a laptop that you wish to use swsusp
> > on. Even then you'd probably only need a little bit more swap than you
> > have RAM.
>
> Disk is cheap, RAM isn't as cheap, even with 4Gb of RAM you only need 8Gb
> of SWAP space (at 2xSwap), given that 80Gb and 120Gb disks are becoming the
> norm, 8Gb of disk space doesn't seem that bad...
>
> Perhaps 8Gb is excessive, but, it's a tried and tested rule-of-thumb.
>
> > Talking of which... is there anyway to assign X amount of swap, but only
> > let the kernel use a specific amount?
>
> To what end?
>
> If you're using swap on LVM, you can alter the swap-space at will (this is
> highly recommended on boxes where you think you're gonna boost the RAM).
>
I'd like to use swsusp to suspend my laptop to disk. However, with 256Mb RAM, 
and my affection for KDE, I regularly find myself eating into the 256Mb swap 
that I have. I might, in some instances, be using a total of say, 300Mb, so 
it attempts to save 300Mb into a 256 swapspace... I could resize my 
partitions to cope (lack of foresight - my fault anyway) and give it more 
swap, but how can I be sure that it doesn't use up more that space either?

I know this may sound strange, and I've probably got the wrong end of the 
stick when it comes to swap matters, so feel free to LART me.

Regards

Kyle