Re: Recommended swap for 2.4.x.

[Linus Torvalds]

In article <[e-mail]>,
Alan Olsen  <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>What is the recommended amount of swap with the 2.4.x kernels?
>
>The standard rule is usually memory x 2.  (But that is more a Solaris
>superstition than anything else.)

"memory x 2" is probably a good rule. With normal usage patterns, at the
point you fully use up your swap, you _want_ the system to start killing
things off due to out-of-memory errors.

But there really is no "fixed" rule: it can depend a lot on your usage
patterns. Some people have a lot of big background processes that don't
have a big active footprint but that have a lot of "idle" pages that can
successfully be swapped out - using up tons of swap-space without
actually causing any bad behaviour.

And you might end up adding more memory.. 

		Linus