*BSD News Article 3078


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!torn!watserv2.uwaterloo.ca!watserv1!mks.com!fredw
From: fredw@mks.com (Fred Walter)
Subject: Re: stock 0.1 swap not enough.
Message-ID: <1992Aug4.162010.16364@mks.com>
Keywords: swap
Organization: Mortice Kern Systems Inc., Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA
References: <BsDzMo.1ru@chinet.chi.il.us> <BsFMoo.EvF@obiwan.uucp>
Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1992 16:20:10 GMT
Lines: 30

bob@obiwan.uucp (Bob Willcox) writes:
>randy@chinet.chi.il.us (Randy Suess) writes:
>>	Well, I now have proof that the stock 5 meg swap partition
>>	created with the 0.1 install disk is not enough.  I added
>>	a second disk and gave it another 5 megs of swap (I have
>>	8 megs memory) using swapon.
>
>How does one go about increasing the swap size when you only have a
>single disk?  Is there a way to do this without re-installing?

No, you'll have to re-install. What I plan on doing (once my system is
more stable) is backing up my system with cpio, then using the Fixit disk
(and an editted /etc/disktab on the Fixit disk that has a correct swap size 
entry) to re-disklabel my primary hard disk, re-format my partitions and then
restore from tape.

I've seen several formulas for calculating the correct amount of swap.
	- one person said 2*physical_memory*1.1
	- one person said 2*physical_memory*1.5

So, which is it ? I'd rather not waste more harddisk space than necessary on
a too-big swap partition (I have 12 meg RAM; 2*12*1.1=26.4; 2*12*1.5=30)
because I'm currently running without a swap partition and my system hasn't
seemed to need one. But I want to run X386 and those binaries are *hugh* so
I'll need some swap space. (And more memory, and more hard disk space...)

	fred
-- 
Disclaimer: everything I write is my *personal* opinion and does not represent
or reflect the opinion of the company which employs me.