Re: Wrong docs on wal_buffers?

On Fri, Jan 7, 2011 at 7:07 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Samuel Gendler <sgendler(at)ideasculptor(dot)com> writes:
> > Does it not seem that this insistence on shipping a default config that
> > works out of the box on every system incurs a dramatic penalty when it
> comes
> > to getting a useful postgres config for a production system?
>
> > I'm sure this argument has probably been done to death on this list (I'm
> a
> > relatively recent subscriber),
>
> No kidding. Please review the archives.
>
> The short answer is that even though modern machines tend to have plenty
> of RAM, they don't tend to have correspondingly large default settings
> of SHMMAX etc. If we crank up the default shared-memory-usage settings
> to the point where PG won't start in a couple of MB, we won't accomplish
> a thing in terms of "making it work out of the box"; we'll just put
> another roadblock in front of newbies getting to try it at all.
>
>
Yes, I understand that. I was trying to make the point that, in an attempt
to make things very easy for novice users, we are actually making them quite
a bit more complex for novice users who want to do anything besides start
the server. But no need to have the debate again.

--sam