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how big does the swap file need to be for mandrake 8.1?

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Man that's outdated. SWAP files are supposed to be a substitute for not having an adequate amount of RAM, so the more RAM you have, the SMALLER your swap should be. The 2x rule was outpaced a while back but people are still quoting it.

What it comes down to is this, how much RAM do you want to be able to address in Linux? If you've got 1024 megs of RAM, don't make a swap file (unless you *really* need it for some reason) and you'll always be running at high speed as the swap file won't be needed. If you've run Windows and found a 'comfort point' for your Virtual Memory, use that as your swap size. Myself, I've got 256 megs of memory and run all my swaps @ 256 megs. I've never had an out-of-memory error in Windows or Linux.

Stolid
 
well I didn't know what I was doing when I install linux on my new 60 gig so I did 10x my ram for 2.5gigs!! yeah i think I need to know how to change teh size of the swap disk now! LOL
 
Stolid said:
Man that's outdated. SWAP files are supposed to be a substitute for not having an adequate amount of RAM, so the more RAM you have, the SMALLER your swap should be. The 2x rule was outpaced a while back but people are still quoting it.

What it comes down to is this, how much RAM do you want to be able to address in Linux? If you've got 1024 megs of RAM, don't make a swap file (unless you *really* need it for some reason) and you'll always be running at high speed as the swap file won't be needed. If you've run Windows and found a 'comfort point' for your Virtual Memory, use that as your swap size. Myself, I've got 256 megs of memory and run all my swaps @ 256 megs. I've never had an out-of-memory error in Windows or Linux.

Stolid
Really? hm... I got that from mandrake's web site.
 
The thing on Mandrake's site is probably a more "cover their ***" kind of thing. If you want to be really thoughtful about your swap space and stuff, Stolid is offering good advice.
 
I have 384MB of RAM and a 48MB swap file. It always has plenty memory and rarely uses >5MB of swap.

I would say RAM -> swap:

128MB -> 256MB
256MB -> 192MB
384MB -> 128MB
512MB + -> 64MB

to be safe.
 
I read that if you use more than 128mb, ya have ta make separate partitions for each 128mb segment, to really use it all, bcuz linux can't use more than that, from each partition. I may be wayy off base here, I just read that somewhere, I use the same 128mb partition for all the linux distros I have on here, and that's the least of my worries...
 
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