linuxgeek: [LINUX_Newbies] Re. SWAP...I may need LESS (bottom-posted)

Thursday, September 24, 2009

[LINUX_Newbies] Re. SWAP...I may need LESS (bottom-posted)

--- In LINUX_Newbies@yahoogroups.com, John Black <spam@...> wrote:
>
> J wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 18:01, Andrew <andrew@...> wrote:
> >> I think I need more swap space. Can I add free space to my swap partition without without destroying the
> >> data partition?
> > What makes you think you need more swap?
>
> You can use the free command to see how much memory you are using.
> Here is an example of my system with 4GB RAM and 512MB SWAP space.
> $ free -m
> total used free
> Mem: 3948 1005 2943
> -/+ buffers/cache: 503 3444
> Swap: 517 0 517
>
> As you can see my system does not even use any SWAP, used 0.
> My SWAP space is too small to allow me to suspend my system since I need
> SWAP space as large as my RAM but my system boots fast enough that I
> don't need to suspend.
>
> Try to avoid using SWAP because it is memory stored on your hard drive
> which is SLOOOOOOW. So check the output of free -m to see how much is free.
>
> BTW, instead of resizing your SWAP partition you can simply add a second
> swap partition to your system.
> Use fdisk to create a swap partition.
> then use
> $mkswap /dev/partition
> to format the new swap space. Next run
> $swapon /dev/partition
> to start using the new swap space and finally add an entry to /etc/fstab
> about your new swap space so it is mounted during boot.
>
> --
> John

My Swap shows 8871 available (0 used). Would it behoove me to downsize? I have 66 Gig available disk space (32%) and I have almost every app. I should ever need plus many I'll *eventually* delete.
Mark