Can a swap or boot partition be too big?

gadams33 · 08-22-2004, 05:08 PM

I am about to start fresh w/ Fedora Core 1 (leaving FC2 behind me due to driver unavailability). In making my new partitions, I plan on doing the following:
- /boot ext3 100MB
- swap swap 2000MB (in anticipation of having 2GB of RAM; only have 256MB now)
- and then a couple of partitions for apps, video, etc.

The question of the day is: is there such a thing as too big a swap space? Or too big of a boot partition?

Thanks.

mikieboy · 08-22-2004, 05:20 PM

The current maximum size of swap space for a i386 computer is 2 Gb. For Linux kernels 2.1 and earlier it is 128 Mb. Too much swap space is quite literally a waste of space as it can not be used.

mugstar · 08-22-2004, 05:22 PM

No there's no such thing as a 'too big swap / boot'. What there is, is 'space that never gets used and could usefully be devoted to storing files'.

Seriously, a 2GB swap is waay over the top. If you're gonna be running a box with 1GB of RAM, the system is hardly ever gonna need to swap out. I'd say go with 256MB.

How many distro's are you gonna install on this box? 100MB will be room enough for several.

michaelk · 08-22-2004, 05:29 PM

Other the a waste of space the answer is no. Swap space depends on what type of applications and system your planning on running. A high use web or ftp server will benifit more from a larger swap then the average joe surfing the web. 512MB is a good size.

gadams33 · 08-22-2004, 05:48 PM

Thanks for all of your helpful replies. I only plan on running one distro (FC1), so I will keep the /boot down to 100MB and the swap down to 512MB (again, I do plan on having 2GB of memory soon enough). Just waiting for the ISOs to download, then the next step begins...