<quote who="Howard Lowndes"> > I think I have just found a reason why the default installation often > makes swap = 2xRAM. > > It's to do with laptops mainly. When they hibernate they apparently roll > the memory image out to the swap space, hence the recommendation about the > swap space size.
No, the 2*RAM thing comes from the distant past, back when the 2.2 and 2.4 VMs were lame. You don't need 2*RAM for laptop hibernate -- all the laptop needs is system (and sometimes video) memory written to disk, and with the current hibernate code, it's gzipped on the way in. (Your disk is slower than your CPU, so compressing to disk makes a *lot* of sense.) So, systems that still do 2*RAM by default do not do it for this reason (consider also that RHEL, not exactly primarily used with laptops, still leads the charge for 2*RAM). - Jeff -- Open CeBIT 2007: Sydney, Australia http://www.opencebit.com.au/ "Thanks for watching, I'm Katie Couric... and I'm not just for breakfast anymore." - Katie Couric on Letterman -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
