/ and swap sizing (was: Fresh install Kubuntu 13.10: how best...)

[Felix Miata]

On 2013-10-25 20:19 (GMT+0300) Georgi Kourtev composed:

> I have 30G for the root that is about half empty. The rest of my 250 G disk
> is /home, and 2G of swap. I also noticed that my swap is almost never used.

Allocating 2X RAM for swap is an ancient anachronism, invented for machines 
with only 4M or less of installed RAM. Ordinary users with 4G (1000X as much) 
installed who need swap ever are rare. This machine with 4G installed RAM 
running 6 web browsers, 200+ tabs, plus other running apps runs a 10G / 59% 
full, no swap enabled, and no observable performance loss from lack of 
enabled swap. Allocating some swap to catch potential memory leakers before 
locking a system up makes some sense, but it is rarely necessary for more 
users. One common use where enable swap *might* provide observable speedup is 
duplicating DVDs using one DVD drive, since a temp file in RAM instead of HD 
is seriously faster. Net result though, due to I/O bottleneck, isn't so much 
faster.
-- 
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  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/