Is it true that there is a limit to the size of Linux's usable swap space?

[Noriaki]

I heard somewhere that linux has a cap on how much swap space it can use..is this true? seems kind of odd to me...but if I set aside a Gig for linux swap will that be a waste of most of that gig since it only uses a certain amount anyways?

Edit: sorry about the multitude of threads i've started lately..I'm going to go tri-boot Win98/Win2k/Linux this weekend, and I'm trying to work out all the details first....

 

[Noriaki]

Linux Gurus where are you I know you're out there

 

[Priit]

There might be limit on 4 or 8Gb, but I'm not sure (thougt it might be limited by size maximum amount of memory linux can handle). Anyway, U shouldn't worry about it too mutch, unless U have a really BIG server to set up. I think if U manage to make swap partition and linux doesn't complain about it, it's just OK. Anyway, with 192Mb RAM, linux doesn't even touch swap when I'm running KDE and lots of apps under it (Netscape, StarOffice, Gimp, Q2 etc.). Got machine swapping only when toying with WINE...

 

[bubba]

it used to be that swap partitions could only be 127 MB. I think that has been overcome now, but you could make several 127 MB swaps anyways.

Are you talking a swap partition, or a swap file?

Why would you need a GB of swap?!?!

 

[andri]

One swap partition can be 8GB, if you want more create multiple swap partitions

 

[Noriaki]

<< Why would you need a GB of swap?!?! >>

Don't *need* just want
Well I have an 8.5Gig (9.1 Retail gigs) WD Expert that I'm setting aside completely for linux. Since I know linux is well behaved and doesn't need a re-install every 3 weeks I'm just going to set it up with future expanadbility in mind
I'm actually going 4gig Linux install, 4gig Linux working drive (/home or soemthing like that) and the rest to Swap.
I'm installing Lilo on that drive, and then linking to it from Win2k's bootloader on my 75GXP, after that my Linux drive should be a happy little unit that doesn't need to be messed with when I need to reinstall windows

 

[Damaged]

Well scalability is inherent in Linux (UNIX) Swap partitions. What do I mean? I mean you can always easily add more of them.

A GB eh? Hmm, we still run a shell server for our users. Currently it's a Sun UE 3000, Quad Sparc 166's, w/1.5GB RAM, and 1.2GB of swap.

Looks something like this on a Sat morning:

Memory: 1536M real, 166M free, 179M swap in use, 1216M swap free

Notice how little swap is in use? That's only 137 users though. Quite honestly I don't think I ever see the swap go much over a 500MB of use though.

Just an FYI.

 

[Noriaki]

Well I only have 128MB of RAM so If I want 1.5gigs in use I need alot of swap

I didn't actually know I could more than one swap until this morning.
Win2000 can to...that's amazing.
All my friends hail me as some kind of computer god, lately I feel like such a newbie (Been playing with Linux more lately and just started my first journey into NT)

I cut the swap back to ~450MB

 

[Damaged]

Heh. Wanna sound REALLY knowledgeable about swap? In Linux, and as I recall this works in most *NIX variants, you can EASILY stripe your swap partitions for better performance without any complicated RAID setup!

Just create the partitions, mkeswap, then edit your /etc/fstab as follows (this is an example only for one system):

/dev/hda1 swap swap pri=1,defaults 0 0
/dev/hdc1 swap swap pri=1,defaults 0 0

Voila! Striped swap.