Swap Partition

Forum: DSL Tips and Tricks
Topic: Swap Partition
started by: steings

Posted by steings on Sep. 19 2008,13:03

I did a HD install of DSL 4.4 on my old laptop. I created 2 partitions:
/dev/hda1 = Swap 530 MB
/dev/hda2 = / 3.5 Gig

I have never seen the Swap monitor that is on the desktop move or indicate any activity. I only have 192 MD of Ram. Is there a way to check to make sure Swap is active? I typed the Free command and it says I have a Swap partition.

Posted by mikshaw on Sep. 19 2008,13:07

Code Sample

cat /proc/swaps

if nothing is displayed, try

Code Sample

sudo swapon /dev/hda1

It's more likely that your swap is active, but just not needed yet. Unlike Windows, which uses its paging file constanly, Linux uses swap only when physical ram is limited (EDIT: at least that's my belief; not necessarily fact).

Posted by steings on Sep. 20 2008,02:14

I ran the command and it showed my swap file. Thanks

Posted by stunix*com on Sep. 21 2008,17:41

you can also use
sudo free
or
sudo swapon -s
to see the swap space status.

Posted by sankarv on Sep. 30 2008,05:38

hi...

i was doing a huge copy operation from my hard disk to usb drive and since it was too slow (i found a difference with DSL linux speed(which is known for that) itself in fact ).

i checked my swap space with free command but swap was not at all utilized.

What may be the reason for that?

By the way i have 512 MB ram with celeron 1.7 ghz processor and 1.1 GB of swap space.

Also the data's total size is 4.0 GB.

Posted by curaga on Sep. 30 2008,12:34

Why should swap be used as a file copying buffer?
It's RAM replacement, and most file copying only uses ram some blocks at a time, some tens of kb's..

Posted by chaostic on Sep. 30 2008,18:31

Quote (sankarv @ Sep. 30 2008,01:38)

Is the data one (or a bunch) of big files, or hundreds of little files? DO you have DMA enabled for your harddrive? Are your usb ports 2.0? Is your external drive usb 2.0?

Posted by sankarv on Oct. 01 2008,10:41

i was trying to copy two movie files dvd vob format which comes 2 gb each, ya my usb ports and drive usb is the latest one...

reg. dma im not sure how to do that....

Posted by Juanito on Oct. 01 2008,12:17

Just add the boot code dma...

Posted by sankarv on Oct. 06 2008,06:23

thanks will check it out...