OK, so I'm a n800 noob, but fairly well-versed in Linux. I intend to run some pretty big apps; Gnumeric, Abiword, the Garnet VM with a few Palm apps, maybe GPE PIM. So how big a virtual memory file should I give it? At the moment I was thinking of the whole 128M card that came with it, but is that enough?

Well, I don't extend the virtual memory at all (the term 'virtual memory file' is actually wrong, it's a swap file that extends the available virtual memory for the applications. With only RAM and no swap the VM is 128MB, with swap file of 128MB the VM is extended to 256MB. In Linux _all_ user applications work with virtual memory, that's all they know about).

I don't run out of memory with my setup, except when starting several MicroB instances on some sites (Opera doesn't run out of memory for me on the same sites). I also use GarnetVM without problems. But I haven't used Abiword, don't know how much it takes.
If you're going to add swap you may as well grab 128MB, which incidentally is how much the control panel will allow you.

I've leaved it alone, played a lot with Canola, gnumeric, working while listening internet radio etc etc never had a problem. No Abiword experience, but heard is a heavy one.

When I first got my n800 (about a week ago) I was a little shocked about how slow the thing but, but when I put in the 128mb miniSD card that came with it into the internal memory and allocated all of it to virtual memory, boy what a difference! Everything just seemed to move faster, especially when multitasking. I plan to get a high speed SD card to see what difference that makes, and no matter how big the card I get (probably just a 2gb) I'm probably going to be allocating up to 1gb to virtual memory, if not all of it.

I'll be experimenting with the swap space as well when I get my 16GB SDHC card, to check out what several people say about improved speed (there's no obvious reason for thata, but I just got to believe what people say I guess -- anyway I'll be doing some benchmarking and analyses next year).

However, I doubt it will gain you much to increase the swap space too much. I've experimented with swap space three or four times RAM size on Linux desktop systems, and except for working as a life saver in case one application goes amok with data allocations, it actually slows down the system after some days or weeks, until at one stage I have to stop the whole X environment and get rid of all those applications hiding mostly in swap.

You can only allocate up to 128MB, so a bigger card will not let you allocate more.

It would be good if they raise the limit. Right now, the VM usually maxes out and crashes when i load videos from Southparkzone.com or movie-on-demand.tv.

haha, i was just going to come say that. i found 256 card lying around and i put it in, and yep, only 128mb. good thing i didn't buy 2gbs worth :P

luusyphre, you can use the rest of the card for general file storage, so it's not wasted capacity.

Really. I've got 32GB and don't feel any of it is wasted space. Just more multimedia files. hehe