Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-13 Thread Jan Engelhardt
>> Linux doesn't grow swapfiles at all. It uses what's there at mkswap time. >> You can make new ones of course - manually. > >And this part. I've never known linux to grow the swap file. I did try the >sparse one a long time ago. Of course it didn't work. I can't remember where exactly I

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-13 Thread Jan Engelhardt
Linux doesn't grow swapfiles at all. It uses what's there at mkswap time. You can make new ones of course - manually. And this part. I've never known linux to grow the swap file. I did try the sparse one a long time ago. Of course it didn't work. I can't remember where exactly I read it

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-12 Thread Wakko Warner
Helge Hafting wrote: > Wakko Warner wrote: > You don't need to zero out swapfiles. You can fill them with anything, > even /dev/urandom. Zero-filling may be faster though. A swapfile > is not zero the second time you use it - then it contains leftovers > from last time. I understand this part.

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-12 Thread Wakko Warner
Helge Hafting wrote: Wakko Warner wrote: You don't need to zero out swapfiles. You can fill them with anything, even /dev/urandom. Zero-filling may be faster though. A swapfile is not zero the second time you use it - then it contains leftovers from last time. I understand this part. So

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-11 Thread Helge Hafting
Wakko Warner wrote: Bernd Eckenfels wrote: In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: You misunderstood entirely what I said. There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create those

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-11 Thread Helge Hafting
Wakko Warner wrote: Bernd Eckenfels wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: You misunderstood entirely what I said. There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create those

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-10 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > So are you saying that if I create a swap partition it's best to use dd to > zero it out before mkswap? Nope I did not. However I dont know of any other shell tool which can do it that easyly. > As far as portable, we're talking about linux,

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-10 Thread Wakko Warner
Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > > You misunderstood entirely what I said. > > There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file > system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create > those files very often. Besides

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-10 Thread Wakko Warner
Bernd Eckenfels wrote: In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: You misunderstood entirely what I said. There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create those files very often. Besides it is

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-10 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: So are you saying that if I create a swap partition it's best to use dd to zero it out before mkswap? Nope I did not. However I dont know of any other shell tool which can do it that easyly. As far as portable, we're talking about linux, portability is

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > You misunderstood entirely what I said. There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create those files very often. Besides it is better for the OS to be able

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Wakko Warner
Eric Sandall wrote: > >Of course, now this begs the question: Is it possible to create a large > >file > >w/o actually writing that much to the device (ie uninitialized). There's > >absolutely no reason that a swap file needs to be fully initialized, only > >part which mkswap does. Of course, I

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Eric Sandall
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Wakko Warner wrote: Jeremy Nickurak wrote: On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Eric Sandall
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, 8 Jul 2005, Wakko Warner wrote: Jeremy Nickurak wrote: On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Wakko Warner
Eric Sandall wrote: Of course, now this begs the question: Is it possible to create a large file w/o actually writing that much to the device (ie uninitialized). There's absolutely no reason that a swap file needs to be fully initialized, only part which mkswap does. Of course, I would

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-09 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: You misunderstood entirely what I said. There is no portable/documented way to grow a file without having the file system null its content. However why is that a problem, you dont create those files very often. Besides it is better for the OS to be able to

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Wakko Warner
Jeremy Nickurak wrote: > On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > > No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One > > could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is > > not always working best is to create those files

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Helge Hafting
On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 09:35:58AM -0600, Jeremy Nickurak wrote: > On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > > No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One > > could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is > > not always

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Jeremy Nickurak
On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: > No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One > could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is > not always working best is to create those files young or defragment them > before

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Jeremy Nickurak
On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is not always working best is to create those files young or defragment them before

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Helge Hafting
On Fri, Jul 08, 2005 at 09:35:58AM -0600, Jeremy Nickurak wrote: On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is not always working

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-08 Thread Wakko Warner
Jeremy Nickurak wrote: On ven, 2005-07-08 at 03:22 +0200, Bernd Eckenfels wrote: No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is not always working best is to create those files young or

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> you wrote: > I guess/hope dd always makes it contiguously. No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is not always working best is to create those files young or

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Coywolf Qi Hunt
On 7/8/05, Andrew Morton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mike Richards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > > Given this situation, is there any significant performance or > > > > stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? > > > > > > In 2.6 they have the same reliability

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Andrew Morton
Mike Richards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > Given this situation, is there any significant performance or > > > stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? > > > > In 2.6 they have the same reliability and they will have the same > > performance unless the swapfile

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Mike Richards
> > Given this situation, is there any significant performance or > > stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? > > In 2.6 they have the same reliability and they will have the same > performance unless the swapfile is badly fragmented. Thanks for the reply -- that's

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Mike Richards
Given this situation, is there any significant performance or stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? In 2.6 they have the same reliability and they will have the same performance unless the swapfile is badly fragmented. Thanks for the reply -- that's been

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Andrew Morton
Mike Richards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given this situation, is there any significant performance or stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? In 2.6 they have the same reliability and they will have the same performance unless the swapfile is badly

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Coywolf Qi Hunt
On 7/8/05, Andrew Morton [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Mike Richards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Given this situation, is there any significant performance or stability advantage to using a swap partition instead of a swap file? In 2.6 they have the same reliability and they will have

Re: Swap partition vs swap file

2005-07-07 Thread Bernd Eckenfels
In article [EMAIL PROTECTED] you wrote: I guess/hope dd always makes it contiguously. No, it is creating files by appending just like any other file write. One could think about a call to create unfragmented files however since this is not always working best is to create those files young or