The 'swap = 2 * ram' rule was needed in some older unixes
	(if you didnt have enough swap you couldn't effecttively use
	all the ram!)

	Under NetBSD its just a guideline - based on the assumption a
	machine with 32MB of ram is likely to be doing much more than
	a machine with 16MB of ram.

	Pu another way a machine with 64MB ram has as pretty much
	the same total VM (virtual memory) available as one with 20MB
	ram and 44MB swap.

	In your case your effective VM is increasing from around 43
	(20ram + 25swap - some kernel space) to ~59, so unless you
	plan to be running much bigger programs, all is very much well :)

		David/absolute

 -=-  "I know its not the right thing, and I know its not the good thing"  -=-

On Sun, 21 Jun 1998, Steve Revilak wrote:

> An ad in MacWeek caught my attention recently.  A company called
> MacSolutions was advertising 32 meg 72 pin simms for something on the order
> of....forty bucks (give or take, these are RAM prices).
> 
> Aside from raising the though 'how cheap can this stuff go' it also raises
> another--'this is cheap enough for me!'
> 
> Now the catch 22.  Machine is a Q605 (FPU), meaning that there's only I
> slot, which I have filled with a 16 meg chip (total of 20).  The thirty-two
> is my only option, bringing the total up to 36 megs.
> 
> However, there's the issue of swap.  I remember the install guide saying
> something to the effect of "A good rule of thumb is twice physical RAM, or
> at least 20 megs".  Being short on drive space, a 25 meg swap partition
> seemed to be at least not too unreasonable a compromise--small drive....
> It's worked well for me so far.
> 
> Big question--with 36 megs of physical ram, how much of a problem will I
> run into with only a 25 meg swap partition?  Considering I don't tend to do
> a lot of 'intensive' work with this machine, can I get by....or do I look
> like a canidate for 'reformat-city'.  Which of course brings bummer
> #2...there's only about 12-15 megs of free space there to begin with....
> 
> Thoughts?  Thanks in advance.
> 
> 
> Steve Revilak
> revilak@umbsky.cc.umb.edu
> 
>