2.4.20 kernel, 4Go Ram, swap size recommendation ?

[Nicolas Turro]

Hi, we have a bunch of Pcs here with 4 Go of ram.
In the old times, setting a swap file twice as big as the
physical ram was the rule i followed.
In the begining of 2.4 series this rule was mandatory.
What is the current 'usage' speaking of swapfile size ?

We have big disks (80Go) so 8go of swap is not a problem
but is-it necessary ? Realistic ?
Most of our machines will be used as desktop, with kde env
+ dev tools AND will sometime run ONE BIG process.. (mathlab,
custom computation). I think that each process cannot be 
bigger than 3 Go ? plus, let say, an overhead of.. 2 Go for the env
(X server/kde), totalling 5 Go of total memory space needed...
4 Go of physram + 8 Go swap seems useless...
Any thoughts ?

-- 
Nicolas Turro <[e-mail]>
INRIA