> 	Most of the ports' install notes recommend a swapspace of 2*ram.
> 	On a 4mb machine this would give <12Mb of virtual memory, which
> 	seems very tight. Running X+netscape on a 8mb machine with 16mb
> 	swap also seems optimistic :)
> 
> 	Given NetBSD's swap allocation method the 2*ram does not seem
> 	to apply any more.
> 
> 	Would it make more sense to recommend ram+swap figures for
> 	each of the four options (advise, with X, needed, with X).
> 	(something of ther order of 32M,64M,16M,32M ?)

>From day one, the swap allocation method has been the same...  Nothing
new.

It's worth noting that I _do_ think that ~12M of virtual memory is not
unreasonable for a 4M machine (remember, text pages don't count
against that).  I've run X on this machine (it has 4M), a few times
even, and it worked, but you'd have to be a lunatic to want to do it
often, and you certainly wouldn't want to run netscape.  (just with
X and 2 xterms: "ooh, i've moved my mouse, not i get to page for 15
seconds!")

In other words, I don't think the 2xRAM guideline is unreasonable
given what one should expect to be doing with a machine with a given
amount of RAM.  I use that as a guideline, and with the exception of
heavily-overloaded servers i've never had a problem.

Almost certainly, if you want to run netscape on a 4M machine, you'll
need more swap.  However, on a 4M machine, you really don't want to
run netscape.  8-) 




cgd