maybe memory problems

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: maybe memory problems
started by: crori

Posted by crori on Feb. 12 2004,13:21

Please does anyone know if there is a specific size of the swap partition? I left over 20 Megs but X don't want to start
(I have a disk 150Megs all in swap but this configuration seems rather slow, plus the disk i want to use (400 Megs) has just the size for hd installation)

The real question is : How much swap space must i have with 12 Megs of RAM?

I don't want neither too big nor too small...

Posted by Modrak on Feb. 12 2004,17:59

80 MB is fine

Posted by hasty on Feb. 12 2004,19:15

Just curiosity but will the xserver run in as little as 12 mb ram ?

Posted by TyphoonMentat on Feb. 12 2004,19:27

It should do - DSL uses Kdrive, which is specifically designed for small and embedded systems.

Posted by crori on Feb. 13 2004,14:14

thanks for the answers guys

Modrak : the WHOLE linux is 40 Mb and it needs 80 Mb swap? I fear that it's gonna be too slow if it has to read from the swap all the time, but i am gonna try it

hasty : it was VERY slow running from the CD and having 150 Mb of swap space

TyphoonMentat : It should do what? i can't find a reason for it not to do... the biggest memory it ever needed was about 9 Mb including the kernel. Ramdisk of 9430 as it says should be ok just on its own...

Anyways, i'll try it again later and i 'll tell you the results ;)

Posted by Modrak on Feb. 13 2004,16:02

The linux is 200MB
The compresed kernel image has 47 MB
80MB swap works fine on my P3 machine with 512MB and my laptop P 166 MMX with 32MB ram

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 14 2004,03:33

crori:

A bigger swap partition does not slow down your computer. Your operating system only uses the swap file when all other memory is allocated and there is no more RAM left available.

Because you have so little RAM in your computer, it will almost certainly need to swap out and behave slower than an equivalent computer with 32MB+ RAM.

Best advice is:

A bigger swap file will prevent your system from crashing when it runs out of memory.

Buying more memory would be nice, but old RAM chips are usually expensive.

Otherwise, you could either:

(1) Accept the slowness as a fact of life, kinda like someone who owns an original VW Beetle.

(2) Look for an even smaller Linux distro like Grey Cat Linux or Basic Linux. Hopefully they have a version of XWindows that will work for you.

(3) Get used to using Linux from the text mode instead of the Xwindows interface.

Good Luck.