swap file instead of swap partition dd problems

[rezwits]

Hi all,

I recently just got finished with a Triple boot install on my MacBook of 10.5, 4.0r1 (etch), and XP SP2. Everything (almost) went alright with all my installs, even got thru the wireless on the MacBook using the madwifi under one battery charge.

The problem I am having though, is with this particular setup I am unable to have a swap partition for Linux. So I had to use the instructions I found for creating a swapfile instead of using a swap disk (partition). What happened though is when I used the "dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1024 count=1048576", I substituted 1024 and 1048576 with 3072 and 3145728 respectively because I have 3 GB of RAM installed and issued the command and then it kinda took a long time instead of returning a prompt. I knew it kinda would take a little time so I waited then I couldn't take it I ^c'ed and canceled out. But then the system told me the process did 7.8 GB of transfer or something (as I recall). So I checked the swap file in / to see how big it was. It wasn't any bigger than normal, but unfortunately out of a 20 GB partition for install all that remained was 9.2 or so GBs. Which is like 7.8 GB for some file (possible swap size, but like I said whe I did ls it didn't size up right) and 3.0 GB for the Linux install.

My question is how can I get this damn swap file removed and create a swapfile the proper size. Can I rename the swap file "swapfile.old" then create a new swap file (but need help with that cause the dd command never quits) then use:

mkswap /swap
swapon /swap
chmod 600 /swap

and then restart then delete the swap.old file?

Thanks for any help I can get...

[MikeTbob]

In my experiences, the swap partition/file doesn't actually get used all that much on most modern computers and I have deleted a swap partition without creating a new one first, just make sure to swapoff before you delete it. I'm not familiar with creating swap files so I can't be much help there.

[rezwits]

Thanks, I need to swapoff

I fixed it the way it should be I issued that dd command wrong, it should have just been 1 GB.