Before You Begin

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More real memory does not necessarily mean more swap space. The need for

swap is much more dictated by the demands of the processes that consume

memory. Thus a swap ratio of 3 to 1 which works fine compiling kernels, as

in the 24 MB swap to 8 MB RAM in the above example, fails when given a

larger task. But the same ratio on a 16 MB machine gives 48 MB of swap

space. This will be adequate for a large task but may still fail under a heavier

load.

Although large disk drives are dirt cheap, there is not always any dirt available,

and you are forced to compromise. Often after parceling out the disk, the left

over partition space is not adequate to the swap needs. You are better off to

take the space from the root partition and live in cramped disk space than

to fall short of swap space. A workstation with 16 MB of memory will be

able to do most any relatively complex work, including compilation of a math

intensive package, without running out of virtual memory, with only a 48 MB

swap partition. More memory in this environment means less swap. Less

memory means more swap.

The root partitions

Now that decisions about swap size are as clear as mud, let's see if Linux

partition sizes are any easier to determine. The base system takes slightly

less than 20 MB of disk space, while the  standard  installation consumes

somewhat more than 200 MB of disk space. A  complete  installation may

exceed 400 MB, but doesn't need to go on one partition. Here is where the first

decision must be made. Is the whole installation going to go on one partition?

Well, if there is one physical drive large enough, what reason would there be

to create more than one large partition? (Leaving room for a swap partition,

of course.) There are, of course, several. Consider two of the most likely.