I would try the 2GB partition, periodically check useage with something like the program "top", then add a swap file if necessary.
Limux actively tries to use the entire RAM, but my system hasn't even touched the swap file in win2000. So it'd be silly for me to make a 500MB swap file. The idea behind the 2X thing is that people think if you buy more RAM, you're doing so because you're expecting more useage. And that might spill over into swap. I would buy more ram because I want the same programs to run better. So you really have to consider what kind of load is going on the server, then actually think about how much total physical + virtual memory you need for that. The only possible problem is that I once heard that it might cause problems if the system needs to dump the entire RAM into disk, maybe after a crash or something. So I've been warned never to make the Swap smaller than the physical RAM. But that's the only real guidline to go buy. 1X all the way up to 3X or more depending on what you're doing. -Eric Hattemer
