[H-GEN] What size swap space is optimum?

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> > > Even with low memory and lots of swapping, any instruction
> > > sequence should surely proceed to completion this side of Xmas -
> > > correct?
> Actually not necessarilly correct.  Most OS's with virtual memory
> subsystems can suffer from an OOM condition called thrashing.  I suspect
> this is what you are suffering.  Effectively what happens is that there
> is so little spare memory available that processes spend their entire
> time-slice in page faults trying to swap in enough of their pages to
> execute, in the process ensuring that the next process on the run queue
> is swapped out and will likewise be forced to spend it's time-slice
> swapping.
Aha! I suspected that something like this was going on.
 
> Ultimately the only solution to the problem is to provide more memory,
> or to use less.  However you may see some improvements by increasing the
> amount of swap
Oh, Great! Being impecunious I was wanting technical justification for spending
MORE money on the d**ned box, and being lazy for doing ANOTHER bl***y install.
Looks like I'm stuck with both.

Thanks heaps, Guys,
Carl Adams.

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