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From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
Message-Id: <199610290813.DAA02946@dyson.iquest.net>
Subject: Re: Request to add this to FAQ re: swap space
To: rgrimes@GndRsh.aac.dev.com (Rodney W. Grimes)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 03:13:02 -0500 (EST)
Cc: dyson@freebsd.org, dtc@scrooge.ee.swin.oz.au, current@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <199610290356.TAA00668@GndRsh.aac.dev.com> from "Rodney W. Grimes" at Oct 28, 96 07:56:33 pm
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> ...
> > 
> > I agree that more swap is better, but at least we need to KILL the notion
> > that 2 X RAM is enough (IMO, 2 X RAM is never enough)!!!
> 
> IMOH, and IMPO, 2 x ram is typically all the swap you should need,
> if you go beyond this need for swap your machine is under memoried
> and page faulting heavily.  There are exceptions to this (things that
> manipulate massive data arrays in malloc regions (yes, I have a client
> with close to 4G of swap, but he also has 256MB of memory, which is
> maxed for his motherboard), wuarchive.cdrom.com running 1000's of processes,
                              ^^ wcarchive???? :-).
> etc...
> 
Actually, enough people get caught by the problem, (especially those who
use several large X apps) that it is best to be cautious.  There are
individuals who know better that can get by with less swap, but it is difficult
in most cases to add swap later.  Adding swap with the VN device is only
a stopgap, and exacts a performance hit.

So, the improved FAQ is for those who are installing for the first time.  Those
with experience can determine for themselves.

John