Re: Postgres performance comments from a MySQL user

Tom Lane wrote:
> Kaarel <kaarel@future.ee> writes:
> > This makes me wonder why is the default configuration so conservative?
>
> There are still a lot of platforms where desirable settings will cause
> the database to fail to start, because the default kernel limits on
> shared memory are still set for 1980s-vintage hardware.
>
> We have had a policy for a long time that we'd rather the out-of-the-box
> settings be guaranteed to start than that they be optimal for
> performance.  No one is going to get as far as testing performance
> if the system won't start for them.
>
> Having said that, though, I do wonder whether we couldn't bump them up a
> little.  Are there still any live platforms where the default SHMMAX is
> less than 4 MB?  (There was discussion of this a month or two back on
> pghackers, but no conclusion.)

Could we have per-platforms defaults?

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