What size for the swap with a kernel 2.4x and 8GB RAM 658

following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.misc...:

That depends on how much diskspace you have to spare. ;-) Something tells me that your system is a 32-bit - probably a (dual) Pentium III? - and that you're running the CPU('s) in PAE mode.

Mind you that PAE - the HIGHMEM support for 64 GB - is required on such a machine, as you would otherwise only be able to use 4 GB of RAM - or only around 890 MB if the kernel was compiled without HIGHMEM support.

If on the other hand your machine is an x86-84 and you're running a natively 64-bit distribution, I would recommend going for a 2.6 kernel - I'm not even sure x86-64 is supported in 2.4.

On IA32, the maximum size for the (combined) swap parbreastion(s) is around 2 GB for the 2.6 kernel. I don't know whether the 2.4 kernel has a stricter limit, but you would never be able to successfully use "twice the RAM" as a rule on 32-bit x86's with more than 2 GB of RAM.

As a sidenote, 2.4.21 is really old and may have some security or stability issues. If you insist on using a 2.4-generation kernel, then I recommend upgrading to 2.4.32 - which is the current stable 2.4vanillakernel.

If not - and I certainly recommend this for any hyperthreading-enabled machine - I would advise you to install a far more recent distribution with a 2.6 kernel.

No, it doesn't. That rule only applied back in the days when computers typically had 256 or less RAM, and it could still be seen as a guideline somewhat on laptops that require hibernation - i.e. "suspend to swap".

No. There are systems that run without a swap parbreastion, even.

My system here has 4 GB of RAM and currently has two swap parbreastions; one that's 512 MB and another one (on a different hard disk) that's 256 MB. That's how I set it up at install time, but I hardly ever hit swap for more than a few MB.

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)