To swap or not to swap that is the question

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

Someone sent me email regarding swap space. He mentioned that on memory 
larger than 512M, one does not need swap. I disagree, but I would like to 
get some educated opinion on this. 
Historically, one would configure swap to be 3 X memory. However today with 
memories typically larger than 100MB, this has changed. Certainly on 
different types of systems, swap configuration decisions would be 
different, such as a web or email server where you may have a large number 
of processes or threads.  

One reason to have swap on a desktop system is for core dumps. Also, some 
applications are very memory intensive. It is not unusual for gimp to use 
100MB. So, my question boils down to a couple of separate issues:
First, a typical desktop Linux system with 512MB or more of memory. 
Second, a server where you are stuck with a configuration since you don't 
want to take the server down. 
Thirdly, a desktop system running specialized applications, such as CAD, 
which may require large memory configurations.  
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Associate Director
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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