Ubuntu
partman-basicfilesystems package

support for swap files

Bug #82351 reported by mon
8
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
partman-basicfilesystems (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Wishlist
Unassigned
Declined for Feisty by Colin Watson

Bug Description

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Hi

i think it would be nice if ubiquity could support swap files instead (or as well as) swap partitions. Without LVM by default creating a swap partition is not ideal whereas you can easily create a swap file in / or somewhere else and mount it under fstab. AFAIK there are no performance issues on using one alternative instead of the other.

I usually do it just after an installation following:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

thanks

Colin Watson (cjwatson)
Changed in ubiquity:
importance: Undecided → Wishlist
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

I support the logic in this bug.

Personally, I prefer swap files rather than partitions in that it gives me more flexibility with the size and location of my swap space.

When I do not create a swap partition at installation time, the installer warns that I have not specified a swap partition, and questions whether I would like to go back and create one.

I suggest that this process is enhanced, such that if no swap partition is detected, first ask the user if a swap file should to be created. After the partitioning and formatting, dd some /dev/zero to a file, mkswap, swapon, and buffer a configuration line to be added to /etc/fstab

Is this doable for Intrepid?

Revision history for this message
Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote :

This is quite difficult to do properly in partman, and so won't happen for Hardy. I guess we can revisit it for Intrepid; it's certainly come up a number of times.

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote :

I plan to work on this for intrepid. Assigning to myself.

Changed in partman-basicfilesystems:
assignee: nobody → kirkland
Revision history for this message
Alessio Bolognino (themolok) wrote :

Hey Dustin, Jaunty is going to be released, any chance we will see swapfile support in its installer?

Revision history for this message
Dustin Kirkland  (kirkland) wrote : Re: [Bug 82351] Re: support for swap files

Scott James Remnant will likely implement this for Karmic.

:-Dustin

Changed in partman-basicfilesystems (Ubuntu):
assignee: Dustin Kirkland (kirkland) → Scott James Remnant (scott)
Revision history for this message
Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott) wrote :

On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 22:29 +0000, Dustin Kirkland wrote:

> Scott James Remnant will likely implement this for Karmic.
>
I won't be touching the installer - I'll just make sure the boot scripts
properly support them.

Scott
--
Scott James Remnant
<email address hidden>

Revision history for this message
Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott) wrote :

mountall fully supports swap files

Changed in partman-basicfilesystems (Ubuntu):
assignee: Scott James Remnant (scott) → nobody
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