Imho: if you 'need' swap, you're running the wrong software.
If an OS+apps' working set exceeds RAM, performance will slow to a crawl in any case.
Best (and only?) argument I've seen for having swap, is that in a gradually building out-of-memory situation (say, a memory leak), swap buys the admin more time to respond / diagnose the problem.
That is a valid reason. Use swap where it applies.
But for eg. desktop systems: pointless. Some app eating all the RAM? Crash right now, please! Then it's usually obvious which app was the culprit. As opposed to slowing everything to a crawl slowly over time & leaving the user to wonder what's going on.
If an OS+apps' working set exceeds RAM, performance will slow to a crawl in any case.
Best (and only?) argument I've seen for having swap, is that in a gradually building out-of-memory situation (say, a memory leak), swap buys the admin more time to respond / diagnose the problem.
That is a valid reason. Use swap where it applies.
But for eg. desktop systems: pointless. Some app eating all the RAM? Crash right now, please! Then it's usually obvious which app was the culprit. As opposed to slowing everything to a crawl slowly over time & leaving the user to wonder what's going on.