linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Need more swap

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Need more swap

J wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 18:01, Andrew <andrew@rotramel.net> 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
Der unmündige Untertan ruft die Polizei. Der mündige Bürger informiert
seinen Anwalt.
[Nikolaus Cybinski]