[Cooker] 4GB physical ram: need swap space?

[James, Rick]

Hello memory experts,

  I've always been under the impression that Linux REQUIRES a swap
partition.  Is that true?
  Reason for question:  I'm considering a system with 4GB ram.  If a
swap partition is required, I think that might force me to use a PAE
enabled kernel to access the swap space addresses.  I don't care to
use PAE if it can be avoided and I really don't need the swap anyways.

TIA,
Rick