what are the remedies available when your swap space is reported as being full? this hasnt happened to me, but i'm just curious to know... Incidentally, what is the origin of this rule that i keep hearing - swap space = 2 * RAM I've heard this kind of rule being recommended when you're running SAP, but for home systems??????? especially when most home PC's are touching 256/512MB.....
regards, kishor
Hello,
what are the remedies available when your swap space is reported as being full?
One obvious option is to create more swap. You can create swap files (mkswap(8)) as you need and add them with swapon.
this hasnt happened to me, but i'm just curious to know... Incidentally, what is the origin of this rule that i keep hearing - swap space = 2 * RAM I've heard this kind of rule being recommended when you're running SAP, but for home systems??????? especially when most home PC's are touching 256/512MB.....
I think it is because Linux started on machine with small RAM (I have run it in a 386 with 8MB). Now it does not make so much sense, right? As you say, if you have a machine with 512 MB RAM, would you put 1GB swap? Only if you expect the machine to be heavily loaded, I guess....
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Kishor wrote:
Incidentally, what is the origin of this rule that i keep hearing - swap space = 2 * RAM
It's something that is heavily discussed on the kernel mailing list. Some time after the 2.4 release, Linux had announced that the swap requirements will stay that way until 2.5 The reason has something to do with the way disk caches are handled, which will be reworked in the 2.5 kernel
SameerDS.
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On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe wrote:
It's something that is heavily discussed on the kernel mailing list. Some time after the 2.4 release, Linux had announced that the swap requirements will stay that way until 2.5
I have 96 MB RAM and 134 MB Swap (odd figure, isn't it ?). Earlier I had 32 MB RAM with the same amount of swap. So far, I have never had any problems even when there is/was excessive use of swap. So, I am not sure if it really matters if swap should be 2x the RAM amount. Rather I would think that the lesser the RAM the more the swap. In fact, that was one of the reason that I had increased my swap size from 64 to 134 MB when I had only 32 MB RAM. At that time I was using kernel 2.2.16
Rajen.
Sometime on Jul 21, Rajen Parekh assembled some asciibets to say:
any problems even when there is/was excessive use of swap. So, I am not sure if it really matters if swap should be 2x the RAM amount. Rather I would think that the lesser the RAM the more the swap. In
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No. That will cause thrashing. The system will think it has more memory than it actually does. Too many processes will get loaded, and then they'll start swapping uncontrollably.
Philip
"Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe" wrote:
Some time after the 2.4 release, LinuS had announced that the swap requirements will stay that way until 2.5 The reason has something to do with the way disk caches are handled, which will be reworked in the 2.5 kernel
Can anyone (also) on the kernel-mailing list shed some more light on this. That would surely lead to more efficiency.
On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe spewed into the ether:
Kishor wrote:
Incidentally, what is the origin of this rule that i keep hearing - swap space = 2 * RAM
The requirement is a statement of the fact: You have to be able to swap your entire RAM cache out, and fill all the RAM from disk Therfore, size of swap = sizeof(RAM) + sizeof(RAM) = 2*RAM.
It's something that is heavily discussed on the kernel mailing list. Some time after the 2.4 release, Linux had announced that the swap
Thats Linus, right?
Devdas Bhagat
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ambarish pathak -
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Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe