Filesystems, Disks and Memory

Well, in this case, probably not. You should have some swap... maybe match your swap with your memory...

It is in actuality dependant on what you're doing with the machine (file server, gaming, desktop, etc...)... If it's just going to be a desktop machine, you should be fine with 512 swap... I doubt you'd even really use near that much, but it's always good to have if you need some quick virtual memory...

Anyone else have any opinions?

I think that with 256 mb of swap is enough

The swap partition is not your VM, but rather a subsystem in your VMM. The VMM manages your ram. When conditions occure that would require more ram then currently available, the least used snipits of programs are moved to swap, allowing space in ram for the program.

As a general rule, swap should be 1.5 x ram, up to ram = 1gig. At >=1 gig of ram, swap should match ram in size. But this rule of thumb is for a business environment. Generally a home user will not task their box in the same way a business box will be loaded. So matching swap size to ram, if you have >=256 meg of ram is acceptable. This swap size is just to insure that your box can handle the load if for some reason it becomes busier than normal.

Good luck. -mk

With that amount of RAM I wouldn't even bother with swap.
The worst bloat I have is JBuilder, that one requires 128Mb.

There is no rule that says that you _must_ have swap - my machine has 190Mb swap and 128Mb RAM, it will run out of swap space long before you even fill up half your memory.

But as mentioned by the others, it really depends on what you use it for, each user has requirements, two users need (sometimes more than) twice as much resources as one, ... and so on ...

Atle