[Solved] Location of swap file

Your swap space is on a set partition. You need to use gparted to resize it but a word of warning. Changing the size of your partition will change your UUID's and reek havoc with grub.

Thanks for that. I've always wondered how to acquire the UUID for a volume, but never actually bothered researching how. I will go to sleep less ignorant this evening.

First, could you post the output of 'sudo blkid'? Also, could you post the output of 'cat /etc/fstab'? Also, could you post the output of 'free -m'?

To be quite frank, I'm not sure what /dev/ramzswap0 is on my computer either, but I know that the swap partitions are sda5 and sda3 (I forgot that I had two swap partitions). I read somewhere that it was better to have multiple smaller swap partitions than a single big one.

To partition your hardrive and create a swap partition, my advice would be to use PartedMagic or SystemRescue CD (available via distrowatch.com). These are the tools that I use to partition my hard drives before I install a new distribution or need to create another partition.

@AlexelA: Glad to hear that you find this function useful. I think I go to bed less ignorant every night, especially since I joined this forum. There is so much to learn, and this forum is filled with many useful tips and tricks.

Cheers,
Ghoti

I have googled a bit, but haven't been able to find any useful information on /dev/ramzswap0: TYPE="swap". My guess, and this is just a guess, is that a swap file has been created when #! was installed, as it looks like you have a swap of about 1.5 Go, but there is no other physical evidence that you have a swap partition (I'm on Dreamlinux right now, and don't see this line).

It also looks like you have 2 Go of Ram, which is plenty for #!. So, if you want to create a swap file without affecting the UUID to much, just shrink your sda6 partition with PartedMagic by about 1 Go (you probably don't need much more than this). Then you will have to edit your /etc/fstab file to include an entry for the swap partition. The entry line for your swap partition will look something like this:

UID=62280bec-3c72-4ed0-be48-b680875b57c2     none  swap  sw  0 0

Now make sure that all your important files are backed-up before you do this.

Another option that I read a few months ago is to create a swap file rather than a directory. I don't know how to do this, and I have to hit the pillow before I become brain dead (2AM here). But I'll google later on and get back to you if I find anything useful.

Good luck,
Ghoti

Thanks Andrew for this link and for the useful advice regarding GRUB.

ramzswap0 is "Compressed Cache" accordingly, not heard of it before today, but from reading up essentially it create a swap file in memory and compresses what is swapped out to it.

http://code.google.com/p/compcache/

Standard in the new ubuntu kernels, accordingly???

With my old PIII, Ram is usually not what is limiting the performance of the computer, but cpu speed is. It has 640 Mb of Ram, and have about 1.5 Go of swap spread over three hard drives (this is a computer that I recycled from a local university that I use for testing distros). It will nearly always use 100% of the cpu way before it uses 100% of the ram.

The only time my laptop ever used 100% of the Ram (1.5 Go) was when I tried to open an Access database with OpenOffice base (which can't be done at the moment from Linux, but it works from the Windows edition). In other words, you should be just fine with 2 Go of Ram and your swap file.

Thanks for all these posts. I'm learning quite a lot!

Ghoti

According to the compcache description, using RAM based block device (named ramzswap) which acts as swap disk is especially useful for LiveCDs: These typically do not have any disk swap configured.

Last edited by Mr. Buggers (2009-03-24 14:39:36)