Re: Swap maximum size documented ?

[Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>]

Lennart Sorensen wrote:

>On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 01:54:51PM -0700, William Lee Irwin III wrote:
>  
>
>>Linux does not entail subscription to hardware upgrade treadmills. No
>>one should be forced by "peer pressure" or Linux deficiencies to buy
>>new hardware. And this is the single greatest thing about Linux ever.
>>    
>>
>
>Sure, I still use a 486 with linux for some jobs, but I am realistic
>about what I can expect from that level of hardware.
>
>  
>
>>O_LARGEFILE and current mmap() code will save him the cost of newer
>>hardware for the near term, and should he be particularly strapped for
>>cash later on when more than 16TB is needed, he knows to look at making
>>pgoff_t and/or swp_entry_t 64-bit on his own. There is no need for new
>>hardware, merely a choice between money and programming effort should
>>he break the 16TB barrier.
>>    
>>
>
>True, although I would think anyone doing actual work on that kind of
>data size would be using fairly new hardware anyhow.
>
>If you have to write all sorts of complex algorithms to work around a
>limitation in your current hardware, perhaps it is cheaper to buy newer
>hardware without that limitation.  Ofcourse if you are working on things
>in your spare time for free, then hardware upgrades are always the most
>expensive solution.
>

I suspect that the company would like to depreciate 30+ 4-way Xeon 
rackmount systems over a little longer than two years. The actual 
limiting factor is probably not money but getting the corporate 
configuration committee to go 64 bit...

Thanks for all the input.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO TMR Associates, Inc
  Doing interesting things with small computers since 1979