"Rohan Beckles" <rohan.beckles@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:42f40dba$0$12882$cc9e4d1f@news.dial.pipex.com ...
> John --
>
> Thanks for the advice, and the clarification. Is it possible to use a
> swap _file_ under Linux, and if so, what is the performance penalty,
> if any?
>
> Best regards,

It's absolutely possible, and is an easy way to add or remove swap space
without having to repartition. I've seen people actually do it by preference
to avoid allocating any disk partition other than /, although I think it's a
bit excessive.

I don't know how much performance penalty there is: Since for most systems
these days, you're only using swap when you've made a mistake and are
overwhelming the system, it more acts as a buffer space to give you time and
the ability to log in and shut down the offending application without
crashing or trashing your system.