Linux Tips: Swap and memory

One important setting in any protected mode operating system like Linux is the swap space. In the
installation, you will need to create a swap partition.A common question is what size should the partition be?

The proper size depends on 2 things: The size of your hard drive and the size of your RAM memory. The lessRAM you have, the more swap you will need.Usually you will want to set your swap space size to be twicethe RAM size, with a maximum of 128 megs.

 This of course requires you to have a hard drive with enough free space to create such a partition.If you have 16 megs of RAM, making the swap space 32 megs or even 64 megs is very important. You will need it. If you have 128 megs of RAM on the other hand, you won't need much swap because the system will
already have 128 megs to fill before using swap space.

 So a swap partition of 128 megs or even 32 megs could be enough.If you don't select enough swap, you may add more later.

"Linux Tips: Swap and memory"

Reference: tipoftheweek.darkelf.net