Tom,
> If we could do that on *all* platforms, I might be for it, but we only
> know how to get that number on some platforms.
I don't see what's wrong with using it where we can get it, and not
using it where we can't.
> There's also the issue
> of whether we really want to assume that the machine is dedicated to
> Postgres, which IMO is an implicit assumption of any default that scales
> itself to physical RAM.
10% isn't assuming dedicated. Assuming dedicated would be 20% or 25%.
I was thinking "10%, with a ceiling of 512MB".
> For the moment I think we should just allow initdb to scale up a little
> bit more than where it is now, perhaps 128MB instead of 32.
I wouldn't be opposed to that.
--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com