Very Computer

I just installed slackware 2.02 and everything works fine except X. Perhaps it's
just me but I feel that X is now slower than before.

I believe that the difference in speed is because I now use a swap file on my
linux native partition (16mb) and the swapon command, instead of my old linux swap
partition (20mb).

The question is:

Is there a performance difference between the two methods of swapping ?
Will I increase the performance of swapping if I switch back to a swap partition
instead of the swap file I am using now?

Thanks,
Michael

PS> I have a 486 dx2 with 8mb ram..

: I just installed slackware 2.02 and everything works fine except X. Perhaps it's
: just me but I feel that X is now slower than before.

: I believe that the difference in speed is because I now use a swap file on my
: linux native partition (16mb) and the swapon command, instead of my old linux swap
: partition (20mb).

: The question is:

: Is there a performance difference between the two methods of swapping ?
: Will I increase the performance of swapping if I switch back to a swap partition
: instead of the swap file I am using now?

Yes -- swap files are MUCH slower than swap partitions.  I use swap files
for "emergency" swap -- you can use more than one swap location, so I keep
16MB in a partition (I have 8MB RAM) and if I need to do something big
(say, with images or something) I just define a big swap file and heidy-ho :)

--
||Jonathan E. Brickman
-->  Want to have a good time driving yourself crazy, but also have the
-->  best PC Net connection in the world?  Try Linux :)

Quote:>>I believe that the difference in speed is because I now use a swap file on my
>>linux native partition (16mb) and the swapon command, instead of my old linux swap
>>partition (20mb).

>>The question is:

>>Is there a performance difference between the two methods of swapping ?
>>Will I increase the performance of swapping if I switch back to a swap partition
>>instead of the swap file I am using now?

>        Yes, there is a difference.

Thanx !

Jack Cheng
CS USU

--

 A linux machine! because a 486        /    Microsoft is the question.
 is a terrible thing to waste!         /    NO is the answer.

I did once cause my machine to run out of swap, but that was because I
was running a process (under X) that assumed I had twice as much real
memory as I actually had... :)

Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows,  A.K.A.  ``I'll get a life when I can find the FTP site...''
Dept. of Computer Science,              6, Randall Place, Heaton,
University of Manchester                Bradford, BD9 4AE
U.K.      Tel: ++44-161-275-6137        U.K.          Tel: ++44-1274-545252

Quote:

>I'd say this is the best technique. I keep a swapfile gzipped in my
>home directory (as I don't like remembering the command line for dd :)
>and, if I think that I'm going to need it for some reason, then I'll
>just gunzip it and use swapon (as root of course :)

  swap_size= 8192
  dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=$swap_size
  mkswap swapfile $swap_size
  sync
  swapon swapfile

You will have a shorter file, one command to execute, and the size
will be eaiser to change.
--
 ___  ________ _      |  Frederic Loyer
| __\| _|_   _/ \     |  Ecole Nationale Superieure
| __\____ | |/ _ \    |  de Techniques Avancees

Quote:>You could just create a shell-script which execute

>  swap_size= 8192
>  dd if=/dev/zero of=swapfile bs=1024 count=$swap_size
>  mkswap swapfile $swap_size
>  sync
>  swapon swapfile

>You will have a shorter file, one command to execute, and the size
>will be eaiser to change.

Thanks.

-Joel

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Quote:>Can anyone tell me how to setup a swapfile ?  I used to have a swap
>partition setup. But I install NT 3.5, the partition failed to work now.
>I need to set up swap file for some applications.

Dan
--
Dan Pop                       | The only reason God was able to make the
CERN, CN Division             | world in 7 days was he didn't have to remain

Mail:  CERN - PPE, Bat. 31 R-004, CH-1211 Geneve 23, Switzerland