Suggested partioning for 3 drives and RAM suggestions

[Alma J Wetzker]

Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2003, Collins wrote:
> 
> 
>>On Sunday 28 December 2003 07:21, Joel Hammer wrote:
>>
>>>I have never had reason to regret more ram. The more the better, IMHO.
>>
>>>On Sun, Dec 28, 2003 at 10:18:39AM -0500, Harry G wrote:
>>>
>>>>Also, I can put in up to 1056 meg of ram.  Is it worth it, or would 528
>>>>be fine?  (Not doing a lot of massive spreedsheet calcs or anything).
>>>
>>Yes, the more the merrier, but I have trouble visualizing a desktop linux 
>>system that ever needs more than the 528 (strange size, is this really 512?).  
>>My current machine only has 256 (less the 64 used by the onboard video card), 
>>and it performs like a dream even with a memory hog like kde.
>>
>>I would save your money for something else like a dvd writer or a firewire 
>>card or ??? rather than adding more ram.
>>
>>YMMV
>>
>>
> 
> 
> YMMV, indeed.  My current machine has 2GB RAM, and I'm thinking of 
> doubling that.  I've been working on a hobby/research project for a few
> years now that needs it.  Sometimes it's because I'm running a number
> of concurrent tasks, but usually it's because I've got this helper Java
> application that builds a HUUUUGE live data structure.  I've trained
> Java to use all the memory it can for the heap, and it does indeed 
> use it.
> 
> Any single Java instance is limited to 2GB by Linux on a 386 box,
> but I sometimes want to compare 2 or more of these monsters.  The easy
> way is just to add more RAM.  (Don't even think about using VM, swapping
> is not a workable solutions).
> 
> Another way would be to rewrite the Java code, and although I have
> the source, I don't have the time.
> 

I always recommend buying as much RAM as you can afford.  If needed, scrimp on 
CPU speed and hard drive space for more RAM.  Anything the CPU does is based 
on RAM.  If the CPU goes anywhere but RAM the system brakes, hard.  No amount 
of CPU speed will overcome that grinding feeling when it needs to go to hard 
disk for something that should be in RAM.  More RAM will make a bigger 
difference to performance than anything else you can do to the system.  Unless 
you are constantly tinkering with your system, buy the RAM up front.  FWIW

     -- Alma