[Techtalk] So quiet

[Subba Rao]

On  0, Magni Onsoien <magnio at pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
> Jennifer Davis:
> > I have also added a couple of 256MB sticks of RAM to my PC.  At $CDN45.00
> > for 256MB, I couldn't refuse.  The 512MB added to the previous 128 gives
> > me 640MB.  640KB is good enough for Bill Gates, but 640MB is good for
> > me.  I reinstalled Slackware and now don't use swap space.
> 
> You _might_ regret that. Swap is always useful, especially if you run
> greedy applications like Netscape, databasestuff, an experimental
> (including the scripts you use) webserver etc. I have 512MB on my computer,
> and a couple of time it has actually started swapping. Running 'free'
> and see that all the RAM and half of the swap is in actual use is a
> funny feeling, and I was happy I had the swap :)
> 

I agree about the need to have swap space regardless of the amount of RAM you
have. I have 320MB RAM and created a 700MB swap space (thanks to the 30GB disk).
When I start using some of the Gnome/KDE apps or Netscape, most of the RAM is
used up. Lot of it is for caching though. It gets worse when you start
compiling lot of apps.

Linux Magazine has listed some instructions to create swap space on the fly
when you cannot partition your disk anymore. I did that for a while but you
have do this each time the system is restarted (which is not often, unlike M$
Windows). After I installed the new disk, I made sure there was enough swap
space.

With 640MB RAM (which is sweet) and no X session and a dedicated server, Web,
Proxy or Mail server, you are in great shape. If you start using X  X apps on
such servers, then you should expect some performance degradation of the
servers.
-- 

Subba Rao
subba9 at home.com
http://members.home.net/subba9/

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