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

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> 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.

Use LVM. You can span a single partition across multiple physical drives 
(or if even computers) and you can use those partitions as swap without 
problems (well.. I wouldn't span it over multiple computers). Or as you 
said just create a swap partition on each drive and activate them all. 
Using LVM though lets you resize the partition without any hassle. 
Splitting your swap across multiple drives and controllers can show a 
significant boost in performance.

> 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.

If you can't afford physical mem then swap is fine.. and can be fine 
tuned to perform better.. but it won't perform as well as physical 
memory.. as long as you're okay with that then feel free to use swap. :)
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