From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262917AbVGHW0m (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Jul 2005 18:26:42 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262926AbVGHWYM (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Jul 2005 18:24:12 -0400 Received: from animx.eu.org ([216.98.75.249]:735 "EHLO animx.eu.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262917AbVGHWXX (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Jul 2005 18:23:23 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2005 18:41:06 -0400 From: Wakko Warner To: Jeremy Nickurak Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Swap partition vs swap file Message-ID: <20050708224106.GA10649@animx.eu.org> Mail-Followup-To: Jeremy Nickurak , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <1120836958.16935.1.camel@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1120836958.16935.1.camel@localhost> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040907i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org 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 defragment them > > before usage. > > Except that this defeats one of the biggest advantages a swap file has > over a swap partition: the ability to easilly reconfigure the amount of > hd space reserved for swap. 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 expect that ONLY root beable to do this. (or capsysadmin or whatever the caps are) -- Lab tests show that use of micro$oft causes cancer in lab animals