I set up swap space... how should I tune swappiness?

[hungarianhc]

Hi All,

So this is my configuration I have right now... Using the sheevainstaller 1.0, I installed mgillespie's debian (squeeze) pre-packaged rootfs onto the device. Works great. I've got a 500GB drive partioned up into 3 paritions:

2GB: swap
100GB: music
the rest: nas

So my "general linux question" is... did I need to set up swap space? It seems like I should, but I know that by default, the sheevaplug runs without swap activated. Can someone help me break down the pros and cons, specific to the sheevaplug? I've been doing a lot of reading on sites, but it seems like those are more specific to desktop installations.

I know that I can tune swappiness.... how high / low should I tune it? I'm going to leave the swap on and let the defaults go for now. If I hear otherwise, I'll make the changes from there. As always, thanks in advance. I appreciate the wealth of knowledge this forum has shared with me!

[mgillespie]

I decided on a swap file, rather than a swap partition,  I means I can change the size of it easilly without messing with partitions.

[hungarianhc]

I decided on a swap file, rather than a swap partition,  I means I can change the size of it easilly without messing with partitions.

I'm familiar with that method, but I'm more curious about the "swappiness" parameter, i.e. the system choosing when to use swap, rather than determining how large to make swap.

[Digmecy09]

Imnot too sure what the difference is in the different tunes.
i know there are dyno tunes, street tunes, and a tune in a canmail in what is better?

[gunnarhx]

Swappiness and related tunings are summarized here:
http://www.plugcomputer.org/plugwiki/index.php/Reduce_Flash_Writes
http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/linux-on-flash.html