Creating a swap file on an NTFS partition

[Master of Puppets]

Hello, guys!
About a week ago I installed Linux on my computer (together with Windows XP). I downloaded and installed the latest version of my favorite browser, Mozilla Firefox and started to surf the web with it. But suddenly I ran into a nasty problem: the browser stopped responding. The whole window system (KDE) stopped responding. So I killed firefox and started it again... Things were going on quite nice for some time, but after a few minutes the browser stopped responding again. I thought it was kind of a bug in FF, but then I noticed that other applications also stop responding occasionally (for example, when I opened a large JPG image with the GIMP, it stopped responding too). So I figured out that the cause of this behavior is the lack of RAM (i have only 128 MB of RAM). I did not experience such kind of problems when working on Windows XP. I thought it was because Windows had a paging file and I did not assign a swap partition for Linux.
The whole problem is that I have two partitions - one is a small ext2 partition for Linux and the second (larger) if an NTFS partition on which MS windows is installed. Now, i did not want to lose the data on that second partition, so I decided not to format it.
So I decided to create a swap file for Linux on the NTFS partition (because the space on the linux is limited).
After asking a lot of questions and googling, I downloaded, compiled and installed FUSE and ntfs-3g, added appropriate instructions to /etc/fstab and created a file named `sfile.swp' on the NTFS partition (with a fixed size of 125 MB).
Then I tried the following:
/sbin/mkswap /media/hda1/sfile.swp
It seemed to be okay. (/media/hda1 is the NTFS partition)
Then I tried this:
/sbin/swapon /media/hda1/sfile.swp
I just waited and waited. The command never finished. I looked into /proc/swaps and saw that sfile.swp had a priority of -1 (is this normal?) and it was not used, I mean a `0' was written in the `Used' column. So... I really dont know what to do I need this damn swap file, or I'll just to have to put up with Konqueror instead of my precious Firefox... Help me!

P.S.: Sorry for mistakes, English is not my native language

[coopstah13]

kde is probably too heavy for 128 mb of ram, you might want to try xfce, fluxbox, or fvwm

[Master of Puppets]

I've considered using fluxbox, but it's kind of too minimalistic for me... Maybe you can advise a window manager that is less resource-hungry and less functional than KDE, but more convenient than fluxbox?
Still, do you have any idea about what I should do to create that swap file? I think, I'm going to need it anyway...

[coopstah13]

xfce is very functional, and a lot more lightweight, i think fvwm-crystal is pretty nice looking and also very resource light, do you have room to make the swap file on your ext partition?

[elija]

XFCE sounds like it might fit the bill. It should be in the repos

Linky

[edit]
Beaten to it
[/edit]

[Jonathan183]

Still, do you have any idea about what I should do to create that swap file? I think, I'm going to need it anyway...

Why don't you use something like gparted to resize the ntfs partition to make room for the linux swap partition? You should backup data before changing partitions but the resize does not mean you need to reformat the partition. I use the PartedMagic CD for these type of tasks ... it works well - but be warned it will take quite a long time for the partition resize - especially if you have a lot of data on the partition.

Ed: use the boot option for systems with limited RAM

[i92guboj]

The problem of running kde with 128 mb or ram is nothing compared to running firefox with that amount of ram.

Firefox can eat many hundred mb's itself.

Though I am not sure what to advice you. These days, every single browser seems to need a gigabyte to operate correctly. You can try opera which is somewhat lighter in term of ram usage. Links -g and dillo are the lighter ones, if you can live with them... Maybe a lighter distro would suit you better.

I would try DSL or something like that, and try to use older versions of the programs.

Trying to run software from 2008 on a computer from 1998 is going to be pleasant, though it could be far far better if you could expand the ram of your computer, in case that there're free slots and you can find the adequate modules.

[Master of Puppets]

Well, thank you for help.
I think I'm going to try XFCE instead of KDE and resize my NTFS partition because I don't have enough space on the EXT2 partition to create a swap file that would be big enough.

P.S.: And I'm going to give a BIG upgrade to my computer in about a month or two, so I think it's gonna be okay

[elija]

Good luck with it.

Let us know how it goes. And if you get any other questions start a
new thread to ask them.