Friday, August 29, 2008

Swap....Does It matter??

Hey Guyz and Galz...
Lemme Clear a Doubt ( ->>Swap<<-) I installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Desktop Edition (64 bit) recently.Following Is my system configuration:- Intel C2D 1.67 GHZ Processor 2 GB DDR2 RAM NVIDIA graphics geforce 8400 GS Rest blah blah... Actually I had a challenge to clear my HDD and make a partition in EXT3 file format system.So I shifted few GBs to Win-drive ,few to pen and few to my fren's HARDY...newayz ...Partition was created.But Initially i had Myths of installing Open OS's is like 1>Swap is must..
2>partition shd be atleast 20 GB for linux etc..

Myth 1:But lemme tell you folks..F* the Swap.......and Juss install ubuntu without the Swap.....nothing gonna happen.Hmm....May be that could matter abt 0.01% or something.plzzzz don't waste your HDDs s in such craps.

If you have a gud configuration (basically Ram processor tuning) than neglect this swap..and if a RAM below 1 GB than you may go for SWAP.for a virtual memory allocation,and to be on the safe side.Coz we techies cant compromise with speed..speed is must...isnt it???????newayz..

Myth 2:Space of 20 GB ..dats of bakwaas...actually it depends.....How many extra packages,softies you wish to install in your Operating system.Check the following table for reference:-

i) If you are a developer : Prefer Linux ext3 partition >10 GBs. coz extra pakages needed to be installed for softwares for JAVA SDK,Python ,Ruby on rails .....nd Latest SDKs.
ii)if you are a muzik /+ movie Freak: 10 GBs>Go for Linux ext3 partition>5 GBs ...Coz minimal pakages inc. VLC and other places will do.
iii)If you are a gaming freak: go for allocating abt 20 GBs for minimum..Reason u must b knowing ...
iv)Others ...consult me...

Well At last keep checking my blog........Loads more to come......nd plz post your comments.
Thanks for reading patiently...
Nikk Signin off....

8 comments:

$hRiNk said...

Cool And Informative First Post!
In All Caps! :D

nik.agarwal said...

Thanks...In future i will make it more imformative,precise and interactive..
Keep blogging ..Yoo!!

admin said...

Physical memory is a finite resource on a computer system. Only so many processes can fit in physical memory at any one time, though many more may actually be ready to run or execute. Swapping and paging algorithms allow processes or portions of processes to move between physical memory and a mass storage device. This frees up space in physical memory.

Swap space is an area on disk that temporarily holds a process memory image. When physical memory demand is sufficiently low, process memory images are brought back into physical memory from the swap area on disk. Having sufficient swap space enables the system to keep some physical memory free at all times.

nik.agarwal said...

Hmm...u r rt.....what if Ubuntu Flushes all the physical memory.....Can you claim/prove ....swap commits such activities!!if yes thn please lemme knw..hmm...any command line or terminal like which could prove This ,Phrase "This frees up space in physical memory."

nik.agarwal said...

actually i guess..In dual core CPUs ...parallel processes run at a time.If a software is precacheing the physical memory..and other is doing the same.But as soon as the 2nd process is stopped.Ubuntu flushes all the physical memory consumed!!Any comments???

Kush said...

And that's what Makes Linux Distro's so much faster than Windows, the flush algorithm is perfect - unlike windows - try running some games and when you close down the game and until you start again - the flush command is not invoked. This is Xp - not so acquainted with Vista. One more issue with Swap being rather vital is if you multitask extensively, the physical memory would fill up - try running Adobe Photoshop (On Wine Obviously), Some Ubuntu Game - yes, there are quite a few - and GIMP together on a machine with 256 MB RAM - thats what I did with my old machine with 2 GB SWAP and it slowed to a crawl - without swap - nothing but a reboot could get you out. So Technically, a SWAP is a must for a developer who works on IDE and is simultaneously browsing and listening to music along with some image editing thrown in sometimes.

sushil said...

Don't be confused with, swap has always to be created in hard drive.Sometimes if you are experiencing a characteristic slowness in switching applications (it seems like the desktop is being painted)then you might serious consider using a portion of RAM as a swap.
.............
Some of the programs are loaded in the memory only for the start up.They are not required after boot process.They remain as such occupying the the physical memory.Better, they are to be moved in swap memory to free the memory.In such cases swap on a hard drive are better.
........
Any way for me, 100's of tab opened in firefox and so many processes running i need swap for better performance(though having a lot of RAM).

May be for others if they do not use the machine as such, they may be getting good performance.

Keep blogging!!

admin said...

you can verify, whether swap really being used is with the help of a tool called "System Monitor" :)