Q: Should I have swap?

[Dick Davies]

On 09/06/06, Daniel Carrera <daniel.carrera at zmsl.com> wrote:

> Now, with that context in mind, I wonder if it really makes sense for
> the server to have swap, or whether that would be detrimental. As soon
> as the server starts swapping, the whole thing would slow down, for
> everybody. It might be better for the computer to say "I'm sorry, there
> are too many users in the system right now...". It'd be similar to
> mobile phones, when everybody is calling at once.
>
> Could someone tell me the consequences of not having swap? What happens
> if I start a program and there is no space for it? I'm sure that the
> system won't just crash, but what /will/ happen?

I certainly would'nt bother with swap in the clients, but on the server it's
probably a good idea.

You won't be able to make new processes (so effectively nothing will work -
you won't be able to put up any messages as fork(2) will fail ).
I'd recommend you make a swap partition, but if it ever starts getting used,
add more RAM, not more swap :)

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