Creating Swap Areas

[John J. Boyer]

Thanks to everyone who gave advice on creating swap areas. I did pretty 
much what Janina and Tim suggested and now have a 1 GB swap file 
registered.

Why is a swap partition more efficient than a file?

Finally, what is this CF/M / ºCTOS partition that I have?

thanks,
john


On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Janina Sajka wrote:

> I've been using swap files, rather than swap partitions, without any
> problems whatsoever. Frankly, I think there's every reason to just
> create a swap file. However, whether you create a file, or repurpose
> some existing partition, you still have to do certain things for it to
> be a swap partition. You don't just rename it and label it "swap."
> There's more to it. It's its own file type (82), for instance.
> 
> If you look at the mkswap man page you'll see that you need to do
> something like:
> 
> 
>               # dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=65536
> 
> 
> 
> before using the mkswap command. Thereafter, though, you can turn it on
> by hand with swap on, or just put it in fstab.
> 
> John J. Boyer writes:
> > Tim,
> > 
> > Thanks. This should do the trick. One additional question: I have a 
> > partition called CP/M / CTOS. ?What is that for? Can I change it to a 
> > swap partition? It's about 3 GB.
> > 
> > Thanks,
> > John
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Tim Chase wrote:
> > 
> > > Mr. Boyer,
> > > 
> > > (I CC'd you in, as I've had trouble getting my account to
> > > successfully post to the blinux list and this may not go
> > > through...if it doesn't show up there, and you think it would be
> > > helpful, you're welcome to repost it to the list)
> > > 
> > > There's a good tutorial on swap partitions and swap files found
> > > on RedHat's site at:
> > > 
> > > http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-Manual/custom-guide/s1-swap-adding.html
> > > 
> > > It's supposedly for RH 8.0 which is a bit old, but the same
> > > method should work in other distros as well.  It's got two
> > > sections...one entitled "To add a swap partition", and a second
> > > entitled "To add a swap file".
> > > 
> > > A swap partition is always the better (read "faster") option if
> > > you have the opportunity, as it doesn't require going through a
> > > file-system.  However, if you just want to create one on the fly,
> > > make use of it for some intensive task, and then remove it, using
> > > a simple swap file is easy way to go.  Partitions, on the other
> > > hand, require you to plan ahead sufficiently to have such a
> > > partition available (or risk monkeying with
> > > partition-editing/resizing tools).
> > > 
> > > And just to cover my own tail, beware of editing/resizing
> > > partition tables...you can hose your whole box with very little
> > > effort (grins).  Take care and hope it gets you put on the right
> > > path to swapping nirvana.
> > > 
> > > -tim
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > John J. Boyer; Executive Director, Chief Software Developer
> > Computers to Help People, Inc.
> > http://www.chpi.org
> > 825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Blinux-list mailing list
> > Blinux-list at redhat.com
> > https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/blinux-list
> 
> 

-- 
John J. Boyer; Executive Director, Chief Software Developer
Computers to Help People, Inc.
http://www.chpi.org
825 East Johnson; Madison, WI 53703