[MLUG] Re: Swap vs. No swap (Michael)

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Michael

wrote in part:

Swap is fine for a bandaid but I try not to use it anywhere I need
performance. Servers and embedded systems especially I suggest going
swapless. If you must use swap then try to break it up across multiple
disks and try to put it near the first of the disk.

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Michael, I am curious about how you break up swap across multiple disk partitions. Sure, I can create as many Linux swap partitions as a drive will allow, but how do I set them up across mult. disks? I like the idea, as the disk upon which my swap currently resides is significantly slower than the rest of my system.

Generally, I agree with the arguments against swap. How many of you do 3-D rendering, though? I would much rather let my machine process overnight with two gigs of swap than to go out and purchase that amount of memory. Some people would scoff and maintain memory is so inexpensive now that I can just go buy a couple of gigs for a few hundred dollars. But I'm poor. Seriously, like, struggling student who's paying for school himself poor. When your entire machine cost less than $160 to put together, a couple of hundred dollars could be a whole new machine! Yes, it would be fast as hell to have everything in physical RAM, but for many, that's a pipe-dream; for example, a lot of third world users are happier than a peach to get their hands on an aging 486 with 4MB of RAM. Good luck getting anything even resembling modern to run on that without using swap (unless you consider Minix modern). I guess my point here is that the technical merits of running a swapless machine are obvious. However, as is often the case, reality necessitates a certain degree of flexibility in respect to the issue. It is my belief that we will not see swap going anywhere for a long time.



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