Can you add a swap partition to Lubuntu?

[M_Mynaardt]

Hi!

I have a live/persistent installs of Lubuntu 10.04 on a USB-HDD. It's on a 320 GB portable drive. I've partitioned it so that 80 GB is for the Lubuntu live install and the remaining 240 GB is another partition dedicated to storing stuff. So this USB-HDD is doing double duty.

The thing is, I was paying so much attention to making the persistent install work without making a mess of the boot loader (I did that in the past; twice!) that I had overlooked the fact my live install does not have a swap sartition on it. I just assumed (incorrectly) that the swap partition on would just be part and parcel of the installation. Can anyone tell me of a way to add a swap partition to each of my live installs? Without losing any data or anything like that.

It's probably not doing any harm not having a swap partition, but I'm assuming that my live install would be that much more efficient with it.

Thanks!

[gordintoronto]

If you have not run out of memory, you don't actually need a swap partition.

You could boot from a Gparted LiveCD and shrink the data partition, then turn the free space into a swap partition.

[M_Mynaardt]

If you have not run out of memory, you don't actually need a swap partition.

You could boot from a Gparted LiveCD and shrink the data partition, then turn the free space into a swap partition.

That takes a bit of worry off if a Swap Partition isn't actually needed!

Do you know if that Gnome Disk Utility can do any of that resizing stuff, if I feel I really really have to?

Thanks!

[SeijiSensei]

You don't need a partition to create swap. You can use a file within the operating system instead as described here (http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-add-a-swap-file-howto/). Just remember to prefix the commands with "sudo" since Ubuntu doesn't support root logins.

[ssulaco]

That takes a bit of worry off if a Swap Partition isn't actually needed!

You will need a swap partition if you suspend-to-disk.....
nevermind, I failed to see "live/persistent installs.....320 GB portable drive"

[lance bermudez]

do all this in the same spot in the termanal the example is in /
cd /
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=2048
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

will make a 2gb swap file in / the last command will turn on the swapfile and to turn it off do sudo swapoff /swapfile if you want to have it turned on and off when you login then add the below to the end of your fstab file in /etc/fstab you will have to be sudo to do it. sudo gedit /etc/fstab

/swapfile none swap sw 0 0

[M_Mynaardt]

do all this in the same spot in the termanal the example is in /
cd /
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=2048
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

will make a 2gb swap file in / the last command will turn on the swapfile and to turn it off do sudo swapoff /swapfile if you want to have it turned on and off when you login then add the below to the end of your fstab file in /etc/fstab you will have to be sudo to do it. sudo gedit /etc/fstab

/swapfile none swap sw 0 0


Cool! I'll give that a go and see what happens!

Thanks!

[cascade9]

If you do setup a swap partition (or file) on your USB HDD, set the swapiness very low (even to '0').

USB HDDs have poor bandwidth compared to internal HDDs, and USB does use some CPU resources. If the system decides to unload a program from RAM to swap its going to take a while, and slow down anything else you are doing on the system.