Re: Swapfile
Craig Metz (cmetz@inner.net)
Sun, 01 Oct 1995 17:16:07 -0400
In message <Pine.LNX.3.91.951001130647.3015A-100000@dirku.demon.co.uk>, you wri
te:
>I was wondering the other day whether, in this modern day & age, we need
>to have separate swap partitions? What with running X, doing a longish
>print in netscape and only 32Mb of RAM, I was swapping and couldn't I
>hear it!
>
>Is it really necessary? We go to all this trouble to optimise access by
>careful layout and block allocation in ext2fs and then blow the whole lot
>out of the water by partitioning the disc in such a way as to maximise
>the head movement (and thus minimising apparent computer speed and
>usability) when we have to swap.
>
>In the olden days of George 3 (wonderful operating system) we could at
>least 'pie chart' file system discs with swap partitions - this worked
>very well - but my original question still holds, can we not just use
>'special' files in ext2fs?
You can use a swap file. The capability has been around for a long
time. If you don't want to use a swap partition, then use a swap file. If
you don't want to do either, write something yourself that you think is
better.
Like so many other things in Linux, you have the ability to choose
which solution is best for you.
-Craig