[GLLUG] no swap installation

[Matt Graham]

> Matt Graham <danceswithcrows at usa.net> wrote:
>> Szymon Machjewski wrote:
>>> Do you have any comments on installing Linux without a swap
>>> partition?
 
>> Sure; my desktop doesn't have a swap partition.  Works fine and has for
>> the last 2 years.  I do have a swap *file*, but it's only 384M and only 
>> 40M of it is in use right now.  (Having 1G of RAM helps.)

>>> I understand that it is possible to install some distros without
>>> swap, only relying on physical ram.  This does not seem like a 
>>> responsible solution, since once RAM runs out the system may stop 
 
>> When RAM+swap runs out, the kernel's OOM killer is supposed to start up
>> and kill some processes.  If you don't have swap, the OOM killer just

> So what you are saying is that if you don't create a swap partition at
> install, a swap file will be created for you?

Nope.  You have to create a swap file manually.  You usually do this by going
into "expert mode".

> Do you know what the swap file name is?

Anything you want.  I use /swapfile .

> or do you have to create it by hand?

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=384
sync
sync
mkswap /swapfile
swapon /swapfile

...bingo.  Put /swapfile in your /etc/fstab and you're good.


-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
"I backed up my brain to tape, but tar says the tape contains no data...."