Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 23:16:23 +0000 From: Frank Shute <frank@shute.org.uk> To: "Anthony M. Rasat" <anthony.rasat@gmail.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: To swap or not to swap Message-ID: <20081204231623.GA47441@melon.esperance-linux.co.uk> In-Reply-To: <1822530854-1228237014-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-916388807-@bxe1001.bisx.prodap.on.blackberry> References: <1822530854-1228237014-cardhu_decombobulator_blackberry.rim.net-916388807-@bxe1001.bisx.prodap.on.blackberry>
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On Tue, Dec 02, 2008 at 04:56:52PM +0000, Anthony M. Rasat wrote: > > Fellas, I need opinions. Asus Eee PC, SSD storage, 512MB RAM, with > GNOME and other desktop thingy (testing out of curiousity). > > > Question is, swap or no swap? Remember, this is SSD, it is > reasonable to have no swap. However, what if I wanted OpenOffice? > This beast is memory hog AFAIK. Thanks for opinions. > What you need to do to make an informed decision is to get the characteristics of the SSD. How many writes can each cell stand? Does it have any wear levelling firmware? I'd be tempted to have swap and if it starts to crap out, replace with bigger/better SSD which as things stand should have improved write durability. There are already (or coming out) new SSDs with improved write performance & wear levelling, which if the manufacturers are to be believed, out perform electro-mechanical HDs in durability As Wojciech says, I'd dump Gnome & use some lightweight WM like fluxbox so all your memory isn't sucked up & you start to go into swap. ie. hit swap as little as possible by your choice of softs (am glad I use LaTeX ;) The alternative to not having swap is a machine that on occasion could run out of memory. I don't know what happens in those circumstances but I doubt if it's pretty. > -- > > Regards, > Regards, -- Frank Contact info: http://www.shute.org.uk/misc/contact.html
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