Re: Auto-tuning work_mem and maintenance_work_mem

All,

We can't reasonably require user input at initdb time, because most
users don't run initdb by hand -- their installer does it for them.  So
any "tuning" which initdb does needs to be fully automated.

So, the question is: can we reasonably determine, at initdb time, how
much RAM the system has?

I also think this is where the much-debated ALTER SYSTEM SET suddenly
becomes valuable.  With it, it's reasonable to run a "tune-up" tool on
the client side.  I do think it's reasonable to tell a user:

"Just installed PostgreSQL?  Run this command to tune your system:"

Mind you, the tuneup tool I'm working on makes use of Python,
configuration directory, and Jinga2, so it's not even relevant to the
preceeding.

-- 
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com