HOWTO: Get rid of that ugly swap partition

[Rainmaker]

If you have only 1 *nix system installed, you don't really need a swap partition. A swap file is much more flexible, and you can alter the size when you're in need of extra disc space.

*edit (thanks to nbensa / Earthwings)
Warning: swap files are a bit slower then swap partitions. If you have a lot of memory, this should not make a difference because the swap file will hardly ever get used. If you have a small amount of RAM, and are aiming for maximum performance, stick with the swap partition.

To check the amount of RAM and swap currently used and available, use the command

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free -m

This will display the amount of swap you're currently using (in MB's).

*edit (tanks to MooktaKiNG)
If you want dynamic swap files (as in Windows), use swapd (http://cvs.linux.hr/swapd/). Unfortunatly, it's not in the portage tree.

To covert your swap PARTITION to a (static) swap FILE do the following:

Make an empty file using the following command:

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dd if=/dev/zero of=/tmp/swap bs=1024 count=65536

Replace "count=65536" with the size of your swap file in kilobytes, and "/tmp/swap" with the name of your swap file.

After this, make the file into a swap file by using:

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mkswap /tmp/swap

//edit----------------------------

For security, chmod your swap file:

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chmod 600 /tmp/swap

//end edit------------------------

Then activate the swap by using:

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swapon /tmp/swap

reformat your swap partition

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*edit (thanks Biker) 
swapoff /dev/hda2
mkefs /dev/hda2

You can then edit your fstab to reflect the changes (i.e. let /dev/hda2 mount on /apps/ or something)
Look at /proc/swaps to see if it actually changed.

You should put the "swapon" command to run at boot time. It added this line to local.start:

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/sbin/swapon /tmp/swap

Local.start might not be the best place (it should activate swap earlier), but as long as you don't start to many services at boot time, local.start should be fine.

Don't forget to deactivate it by adding

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/sbin/swapoff /tmp/swap

to local.stop.

[nbensa]

A swap file is much more flexible, and you can alter the size when you're in need of extra disc space.

Flexible, perhaps. But flexibility comes with a price: performance.

[Rainmaker]

You're absolutely right...

The only thing is, and you find this all over the forum, is that the swap partition / file rarely gets used.

The only reason why it's a good idea to have swap space, is if a program has a memory leak, it won't crash your entire system immediatly.

If you really use memory-intensive programs (running KDE + listening to mp3's + compiling in the background + web browsing + that photoshop clone + ....) it might not be a good idea to do this. But if you only do 5 or 6 things at the time, the performance decrease will not be that big.

[Gatak]

It would be nice to be able to have a swapfile that can grow and shrink to needs, or within a boundary. Is this possible?

[Biker]

reformat your swap partition

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mkefs /dev/hda2

You may want to:

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swapoff /dev/hda2

first.

Biker

[guard0]

couldnt you use a loopback filesystem for this so you could skip all the swapon and swapoff stuff at boot/shutdown by editing your line in /etc/fstab?

[xunil]

It's safe to add your swap file to /etc/fstab:

/path/to/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

[Earthwings]

I second nbensa - think you should put a warning on top to check the usage of swap. Not everybody has 512 MB RAM lying around, and at the point swap space gets used frequently it's not a good idea to decrease performance even more.

[MooktaKiNG]

It would be nice to be able to have a swapfile that can grow and shrink to needs, or within a boundary. Is this possible?

There's already something like that available, or was available. Don't know what happened to it though,
its called swapd.

lets see if i can find a link......

.....
ah: http://cvs.linux.hr/swapd/

Have fun

PS: nowadays HD's are on average 80Gb (or thats the size they sell them on new computers these days). So therefore sparing 1Gb of swap won't really effect people :):)

I usually always create 1Gb or swap. i just do. even though i might not need it, probably.

[NecroScumBag]

How dependant is gentoo to a sawp file/partition.. if the size is small.. One could setup a scrip on boot up to make a ram drive and have the swap file or partition to run from memory. Which in this case would speed up the proformance even more. This might be a option advailible.

[Rainmaker]

How dependant is gentoo to a sawp file/partition.. if the size is small.. One could setup a scrip on boot up to make a ram drive and have the swap file or partition to run from memory. Which in this case would speed up the proformance even more. This might be a option advailible.

But... what is the use of a swap partition??

If you're memory is full, linux switches to your swap to write some extra info. Placing a swap in memory actually just wastes memory.

[gtaluvit]

Necro, I don't know if you're actually serious or not but just to assume you are, it defeats the whole purpose. Linux (and most OS's) use all the available RAM, and when that's gone, starts using the HD as a swap file. If you use a RAM disk, all you're doing is reducing the amount of available RAM you have to use it as swap with added overhead. RAMDisk for swap is NOT a good idea.

[MooktaKiNG]

Gentoo is a source based distro. Therefore it requires large swap spaces for all the compiling.

Its not funny when you start compiling xfree or something and spend all night compiling, then it says "out of memory"!!!

its not very nice either :D:D