To swap or not to swap that is the question

Jack Coats jack at coats.org
Mon Oct 7 16:17:46 EDT 2002


My .02 quatloos about swap is:  Swap is what you use when you don't
have any other place to put it.

Old SunOS requested 2x swap, and would not work without at least 1x
memory available in swap.

Coherent (a *NIX clone from Mark Williams Co) was a real memory only
system.  It was fast and good on low memory  machines.  You just
don't run 'no stinkin gui'.  I think the didn't put virtual memory
into their system, so as Linux and the *BSDs came out, it went away
(in addition to internal problems in the company).

I like swap, but like most folks now days, I try not to use it.
Given the price of memory is pretty low at this point, swap is good
if I inadvertantly run something to large to fit in ram.

-- 
Member/Associate of HLUG, HAL-PC, ACM, /., USENIX, ADSM.ORG, BCUMC, SBIB and
other various random initials and anacronyms.




More information about the Discuss mailing list