Problem with two swap partitions does exist
A while back I was asking around about whether two separate swap partitions for a single Linux is safe or not. That it's safe is not debated. But I just want to point out that it does break *some* functionality. Observe the error message I got: kdialog - more than one swap partition - cannot suspend to disk -- (o- Penguin #395953 lives at http://samvit.org //\ subsisting on ancient Indian wisdom ... V_/_ and modern computing efficiency! :)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Sunday 2005-09-04 at 13:49 +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
A while back I was asking around about whether two separate swap partitions for a single Linux is safe or not.
That it's safe is not debated. But I just want to point out that it does break *some* functionality. Observe the error message I got:
kdialog - more than one swap partition - cannot suspend to disk
Very true, and unfortunate. I had to dissable one of my two swap partitions. Notice that it is not sufficient to dissable the extra partitions with "swapoff", but you have to comment out the entry in /etc/fstab as well. Interestingly, it is not the kernel that complaints. You can use "swsusp" to suspend with both partitions active and it will not complain: I tried. However, in my case it crashed at the end of the recovery sequence, but I think it did because the command "powersave -U" does some things before actually suspending, like removing certain kernel modules that do not suspend well, and the command "swsusp" is raw. I think that it should be possible to suspend with two partitions active in some cases, but I don't know how to tell it to do so. For the moment, either you make do with one swap partition, or deactivate extra swaps right before suspending. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDHBtNtTMYHG2NR9URArRyAJ9vlvJsKEswgQIkFEFn+5wkC+WS0wCcDqEo FfTEABNbhHbdIUcb29ZPYwc= =oyWa -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Monday 05 Sep 2005 15:47 samaye Carlos E. R. alekhiit:
Very true, and unfortunate.
What do you say to an enhancement (or normal?) bug submission? -- (o- Penguin #395953 lives at http://samvit.org //\ subsisting on ancient Indian wisdom ... V_/_ and modern computing efficiency! :)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Monday 2005-09-05 at 18:24 +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
Very true, and unfortunate.
What do you say to an enhancement (or normal?) bug submission?
What do you mean? I'm just a user as you are. :-? - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDHE05tTMYHG2NR9URAu3SAJ45F6mU97bmECyWFEnAa9n1j4XBQwCfbiBO RpG3yky9U8RxDwil0/4DLps= =odBc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Funny, my laptop has two and I can suspend ok. Have a look at where you've told it to suspend too, mine has a file under /var as i told it to suspend to that partition when i set it up. regards scsijon At 06:19 PM 4/09/2005, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
A while back I was asking around about whether two separate swap partitions for a single Linux is safe or not.
That it's safe is not debated. But I just want to point out that it does break *some* functionality. Observe the error message I got:
kdialog - more than one swap partition - cannot suspend to disk
--
(o- Penguin #395953 lives at http://samvit.org //\ subsisting on ancient Indian wisdom ... V_/_ and modern computing efficiency! :)
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-09-06 at 08:53 +1000, scsijon wrote:
Funny, my laptop has two and I can suspend ok.
Have a look at where you've told it to suspend too, mine has a file under /var as i told it to suspend to that partition when i set it up.
Where? There is no place under /etc/sysconfig/powersave/* where the partition can be specified. I grepped all the files there, and there is no occurrence of the word "partition". The only possible adjustement is in the kernel param line, where you tell it which partition to _awake_ from: kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11.4-21.9-default root=/dev/hdb6 vga=0x317 \ selinux=0 splash=verbose resume=/dev/hda9 showopts ^^^^^^ But I don't see where I can specify which partition to save to - remember that it is a different program. Actually, the powersave documentation specifies that it must be only _one_ swap partition: /usr/share/doc/packages/powersave/README.suspend: To use swsusp with ACPI or APM there must exactly one swap partition be configured. This partition must be passed to the kernel via the "resume="-paramerter, usually in /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf (this is done automatically by YaST during the installation). So that is that... However, I said that the kernel doesn't check this and tries to suspend with two partitions active. In my case, it crashes on awaking when trying to restore certain modules, perhaps usb. But the powerasave scripts/program do check. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDHNp1tTMYHG2NR9URAiUJAKCNpUaHJiaFi42WgYcRcAUz/hUh8wCeItvO 8wev5MgCd5YEsPdTK1jNv3U= =N6iH -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
At 09:53 AM 6/09/2005, Carlos E. R. wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
The Tuesday 2005-09-06 at 08:53 +1000, scsijon wrote:
Funny, my laptop has two and I can suspend ok.
Have a look at where you've told it to suspend too, mine has a file under /var as i told it to suspend to that partition when i set it up.
Where?
I don't know, it was a script with the rpm when I installed that asked questions and setup. by the way /var has it's own partition on my laptop (as does /usr and a few others) scsijon
There is no place under /etc/sysconfig/powersave/* where the partition can be specified. I grepped all the files there, and there is no occurrence of the word "partition".
The only possible adjustement is in the kernel param line, where you tell it which partition to _awake_ from:
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.11.4-21.9-default root=/dev/hdb6 vga=0x317 \ selinux=0 splash=verbose resume=/dev/hda9 showopts ^^^^^^
But I don't see where I can specify which partition to save to - remember that it is a different program.
Actually, the powersave documentation specifies that it must be only _one_ swap partition:
/usr/share/doc/packages/powersave/README.suspend:
To use swsusp with ACPI or APM there must exactly one swap partition be configured. This partition must be passed to the kernel via the "resume="-paramerter, usually in /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf (this is done automatically by YaST during the installation).
doesn't make sense to save to the swap's as they are reinitialized??????? I use lilo as I also have os/2 warp4 and grub (at last update) still has problems with warp as a server
So that is that...
However, I said that the kernel doesn't check this and tries to suspend with two partitions active. In my case, it crashes on awaking when trying to restore certain modules, perhaps usb. But the powerasave scripts/program do check.
- -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2005-09-07 at 18:08 +1000, scsijon wrote:
/usr/share/doc/packages/powersave/README.suspend:
To use swsusp with ACPI or APM there must exactly one swap partition be configured. This partition must be passed to the kernel via the "resume="-paramerter, usually in /boot/grub/menu.lst or /etc/lilo.conf (this is done automatically by YaST during the installation).
doesn't make sense to save to the swap's as they are reinitialized???????
Sorry, I don't understand. When suspending, using the linux method (kernel or swsusp), the memory image is saved to the swap partition, it is ideal for this: it is a raw partition, no need for the filesystem to interveene (not loaded yet when recovering). - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDH2NLtTMYHG2NR9URAnFxAJ96gv2GX/STdnUTPVtGNodAU6m2EwCfWw5N eeBTOvkZz3t3q0r8oXsFIqY= =XaUX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Sunday, September 04, 2005 @ 12:20 AM, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
A while back I was asking around about whether two separate swap partitions
for a single Linux is safe or not.
That it's safe is not debated. But I just want to point out that it does break *some* functionality. Observe the error message I got:
kdialog - more than one swap partition - cannot suspend to disk
Which means you're only getting swap usage on 1 machine, or at least that's what it sounds like. Sort of defeats the purpose of sharing swap in the first place, right? Greg Wallace
Tuesday 06 Sep 2005 08:14 samaye Greg Wallace alekhiit:
Which means you're only getting swap usage on 1 machine, or at least that's what it sounds like. Sort of defeats the purpose of sharing swap in the first place, right?
Sharing swap? I don't remember saying anything about sharing swap. It's just that I created a 1 GB swap for SuSE and another for Fedora but when I did a SuSE re-install it automatically configured both the available swap partitions for itself. Fedora uses only one of them, but I hardly use Fedora. Anyway, was just saying that having two partitions does cause some problems, though they are nothing of the system-crashes variety. -- (o- Penguin #395953 lives at http://samvit.org //\ subsisting on ancient Indian wisdom ... V_/_ and modern computing efficiency! :)
Which means you're only getting swap usage on 1 machine, or at least
On Tuesday, September 06, 2005 @ 12:22 AM, Shriramana Sharma wrote: that's
what it sounds like. Sort of defeats the purpose of sharing swap in the first place, right?
Sharing swap? I don't remember saying anything about sharing swap. It's just that I created a 1 GB swap for SuSE and another for Fedora but when I did a
SuSE re-install it automatically configured both the available swap partitions for itself. Fedora uses only one of them, but I hardly use Fedora.
Anyway, was just saying that having two partitions does cause some problems, though they are nothing of the system-crashes variety.
Sorry. I must have misread your post. Sounds like you probably would want to just remove one of the swaps from your fstab and from your boot loader files on the Linux box. That should be all it takes, though somebody on this list who is more knowledgeable in this area should be able to confirm that. Then again, if you have a work around that suits you, that's fine too. Greg Wallace
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Tuesday 2005-09-06 at 13:52 +0530, Shriramana Sharma wrote:
Sharing swap? I don't remember saying anything about sharing swap. It's just that I created a 1 GB swap for SuSE and another for Fedora but when I did a SuSE re-install it automatically configured both the available swap partitions for itself. Fedora uses only one of them, but I hardly use Fedora.
The SuSE install did the correct thing, seeing that there were two swap spaces available. However, you can remove one of them, both linux installs can share the same swap partition - although you can not suspend one and boot the other, that's some thing totally diferent. I'd remove the smaller one. Or dissable it till needed for something else. - -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFDHXNRtTMYHG2NR9URAo92AKCIWlfthJOgsg7bDxiXaFDe8L9urgCfXzw/ pyqArmMCkBlV+Zi26fahoiI= =jp9R -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (4)
-
Carlos E. R. -
Greg Wallace -
scsijon -
Shriramana Sharma