Swap space question

[James Wilkinson]

nicolas angel wrote:
> Hi,  i would to ask something about swap space:
> 
> i quote from the book "How Linux Works—What Every Super-User Should Know"
> 
> "Reserve two to five times as much disk space as you have real memory for
> swap.

I don't know when this was published, but the early 2.4 kernels had a
reworked memory management system that meant you needed at least as much
swap as memory before swap helped at all. So 2x was a sensible default
for most users.

2.2 and earlier, and later 2.4 and all 2.6 kernels didn't have this, and
any amount of swap *could* be used.

These days, the best rule of thumb is "don't worry about it too much".

Hope this helps,

James.

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