OS X Panther Partition Size and Swap Space

[Al Poulin]

Should I set up a partition for Panther swap space?  I have the instructions
on how to do that from Terminal.  Or should I just make the boot volume
large enough to preclude a problem?  What size would the boot volume be in
either case?  

I am planning to repartition one of my two hard drives on a QuickSilver G4
733 to install Panther.  I could reinstall OS 9.2.2 which I been using for a
couple years or just leave it on the other drive.  The apps and data will
all be on other volumes, I hope.

Here's what I understand:  On startup, OS X allocates a fairly large space,
at least equal to the amount of RAM on the machine, for swap files.  But if
the boot volume becomes too fragmented, there will not be the amount of
contiguous space that OS X wants, and it will suffer in performance.  That's
one horn of the dilemma.  The other horn is that if the boot volume is large
enough to begin with, the fragmentation will likely not happen.  Say the OS
X volume is 10GB.

Thanks for any comment and help.

-- 
Al Poulin
Anger, hate, and revenge are for the devil, forgiveness is for God,
proactive self-defense is for the rest of us.