2.5xRAM=my_recommended_swap
but no less than
1xRAM
Swap is used to move programs in and out of RAM for computation on your CPU. The more you have, the less that has to be stored in RAM, and the more crap you can have active without bogging down the system.
I believe that the current maximum is 2GB for SWAP. The setup/install utility for many distro's will allow you to create a Swap partition greater than 2GB, but it will just be wasted space.
Kernels compiled with the high_mem option (4GB RAM or more), have no limitation on Swap, but the kernel must be compiled with this option to make it use anything above 2GB.
