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I used cfdisk to partition my hdb, where I have installed Slackware. I
never used this tool
( nor fdisk...) so I am not sure if I am using it right.
I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
the setup, part I assign respectively to:
/
/swap
/usr
/home

I do not know if this is the right way or if I make a mistake somewhere
....
Everything is working fine but when I check the memory usage through
Control Center it tells me that Swap memory is not available...
I reinstall the system already three times to see if there are some
passages I missed during setup but it is always the same...
I do not know what to think...
Santo

Santo wrote:
> I used cfdisk to partition my hdb, where I have installed Slackware. I
> never used this tool
> ( nor fdisk...) so I am not sure if I am using it right.
> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
> the setup, part I assign respectively to:
> /
> /swap
> /usr
> /home
>
> I do not know if this is the right way or if I make a mistake somewhere
> ...
> Everything is working fine but when I check the memory usage through
> Control Center it tells me that Swap memory is not available...
> I reinstall the system already three times to see if there are some
> passages I missed during setup but it is always the same...
> I do not know what to think...
> Santo
>

Please give the output of fdisk -u -l /dev/hdb (if as you say hdb is
your harddrive) to see the partition scheme.
You shoud have an entry on /etc/fstab such as:

/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

where /dev/hda3 correspond to the swap partition. The top command show
you (among other) if the swap is used. If not you must do mkswap
/dev/<wap partition> and reboot.

Olive

olive wrote:
> Santo wrote:
>> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
>> the setup, part I assign respectively to:
>> /
>> /swap
>> /usr
>> /home

This might be your problem. You shouldn't actually assign a filesystem
path to the swap partition; adding swap is a separate option in the
installer. Thus, your /etc/fstab may be messed up. Here's a snippet
from my fstab.

/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hda6 / reiserfs defaults 1 1
/dev/hda7 /home reiserfs defaults 1 2

Make sure your swap partition is listed as above, and not like below
/dev/hda5 /swap reiserfs defaults 1 1

>> I do not know if this is the right way or if I make a mistake somewhere
>> ...
>> Everything is working fine but when I check the memory usage through
>> Control Center it tells me that Swap memory is not available...

> Please give the output of fdisk -u -l /dev/hdb (if as you say hdb is
> your harddrive) to see the partition scheme.
> You shoud have an entry on /etc/fstab such as:
>
> /dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0
>
> where /dev/hda3 correspond to the swap partition. The top command show
> you (among other) if the swap is used. If not you must do mkswap
> /dev/<wap partition> and reboot.

Note: you must be root to edit /etc/fstab or run the mkswap command.
Also, instead of rebooting, you can simply "swapon -a" to load all the
swap devices listed in fstab. The opposite command is swapoff. If
things still don't work, use (c)fdisk to check that the swap partition
has type 82 (linux swap); this may have prevented the installer from
auto-detecting it.

Later,
Daniel

In <1139914469.458111.299150@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups .com>, Santo wrote:

> I used cfdisk to partition my hdb, where I have installed Slackware. I
> never used this tool
> ( nor fdisk...) so I am not sure if I am using it right.
> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
> the setup, part I assign respectively to:
> /
> /swap
> /usr
> /home
>

Maybe you chose the wrong type for the filesystem in cfdisk. It should be
Linux Swap (82), which is a special type. Then, during the install, the
swap partition is automatically detected and you are prompted to use it.

If you didn't select this, you have to change the type of that partition
in cfdisk and the use Olive's mkswap. If you do not reboot afterwards, you
will probably need to run swapon also. I'm not too sure about that, though.

Good luck

Franz

D Herring wrote:
> olive wrote:
> > Santo wrote:
> >> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
> >> the setup, part I assign respectively to:
> >> /
> >> /swap
> >> /usr
> >> /home
>
> This might be your problem.


....yes...I believe that was the problem...only, smart as I am, when I
reinstalled slackware I have made another mistake because even after
usin "mkswap..." and "swapon..." it still does not appear in the fstab
file and with Kinfo Center it still shows as not available...

root@santolix:~# cat /etc/fstab
/dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/hdb5 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
/dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
........

....but it appear as hdb2 with the command cfdisk.
hdb2 is a primary partition.... I guess I have to reinstall and assign
swap to logical partition ...that should solve the problem...?



cfdisk... output


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hdb1 Primary Linux ext3
1998.75
hdb2 Primary Linux swap
1019.94
hdb5 Logical Linux ext3
5996.23
hdb6 Logical Linux ext3
39999.54
Pri/Log Free Space
31042.21

fdisk -l ...output

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 1 243 1951866 83 Linux
/dev/hdb2 244 367 996030 82 Linux swap
/dev/hdb3 368 5959 44917740 5 Extended
/dev/hdb5 368 1096 5855661 83 Linux
/dev/hdb6 1097 5959 39062016 83 Linux

Santo wrote:
> I used cfdisk to partition my hdb, where I have installed Slackware. I
> never used this tool
> ( nor fdisk...) so I am not sure if I am using it right.
> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which, during
> the setup, part I assign respectively to:
> /
> /swap
> /usr
> /home
>
> I do not know if this is the right way or if I make a mistake somewhere
> ...
> Everything is working fine but when I check the memory usage through
> Control Center it tells me that Swap memory is not available...
> I reinstall the system already three times to see if there are some
> passages I missed during setup but it is always the same...
> I do not know what to think...
> Santo
>

Perhaps you missed mkswap; man mkswap is you friend. Or swapon; man swapon.

Andrew

> ....yes...I believe that was the problem...only, smart as I am, when I
> reinstalled slackware I have made another mistake because even after
> usin "mkswap..." and "swapon..." it still does not appear in the fstab
> file and with Kinfo Center it still shows as not available...
>
> root@santolix:~# cat /etc/fstab
> /dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
> /dev/hdb5 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
> /dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
> ........
>
> ....but it appear as hdb2 with the command cfdisk.
> hdb2 is a primary partition.... I guess I have to reinstall and assign
> swap to logical partition ...that should solve the problem...?
>
>
>
> fdisk -l ...output
>
> Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> /dev/hdb1 1 243 1951866 83 Linux
> /dev/hdb2 244 367 996030 82 Linux swap
> /dev/hdb3 368 5959 44917740 5 Extended
> /dev/hdb5 368 1096 5855661 83 Linux
> /dev/hdb6 1097 5959 39062016 83 Linux
>

mkswap "makes" a swap partition (think the equivalent of mkfs.swap or
format swap: if you're coming from a windows background)
swapon tells the system to use swap. swapon -a tells it to read
/etc/fstab and load all the swap spaces listed in there, you have none
listed, so it won't load any. At boot /etc/rc.S runs swapon -a for you.

neither mkswap or swapon actually edit /etc/fstab. Do it by hand. The
Slackware installer should have done that for you, but I don't think you
need to reinstall. In fact, you probably shouldn't have to reboot either.

(I like to reboot after mucking around with system stuff like that to
make sure I didn't mess up, better to find out now then two weeks from
now when you HAVE to reboot for some reason and you find out the box is
messed up due to user error... been there, done that.)

/dev/hdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0

Ray

On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 09:19:22 -0800, Santo wrote:


> D Herring wrote:
>> olive wrote:
>> > Santo wrote:
>> >> I create a primary partition and three logical partitions which

This would create the following partitions:

/dev/hdb1 Primary Partition
/dev/hdb2 Extended Partition
/dev/hdb5 Logical 1
/dev/hdb6 Logical 2
/dev/hdb7 logical 3


> root@santolix:~# cat /etc/fstab
> /dev/hdb1 / ext3 defaults 1 1
> /dev/hdb5 /usr ext3 defaults 1 2
> /dev/hdb6 /home ext3 defaults 1 2
> .......
>
>
>

This seems to imply that you created 1 Primary and 2 Logical partitions -
not 3 logical partions.

> ....but it appear as hdb2 with the command cfdisk.
> hdb2 is a primary partition.... I guess I have to reinstall and assign
> swap to logical partition ...that should solve the problem...?
>
>
>
> cfdisk... output
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> hdb1 Primary Linux ext3
> 1998.75
> hdb2 Primary Linux swap
> 1019.94
> hdb5 Logical Linux ext3
> 5996.23
> hdb6 Logical Linux ext3
> 39999.54
> Pri/Log Free Space
> 31042.21
>
>
>


Ah, so what you did was create 2 primary and 2 logical. This would look
like this:

/dev/hdb1 Primary Partition
/dev/hdb2 Primary Partition
/dev/hdb3 Extended Partition
/dev/hdb5 Logical 1
/dev/hdb6 Logical 2

>fdisk -l ...output
>
>Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
>/dev/hdb1 1 243 1951866 83 Linux
>/dev/hdb2 244 367 996030 82 Linux swap
>/dev/hdb3 368 5959 44917740 5 Extended
>/dev/hdb5 368 1096 5855661 83 Linux
>/dev/hdb6 1097 5959 39062016 83 Linux
>


Which is what this confirms.
Based on what you have said, the swap line in fstab should be this:

/dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0

Not this:

/dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

HTH

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:29:19 +0000, Franklin wrote:

> Which is what this confirms.
> Based on what you have said, the swap line in fstab should be this:
>
> /dev/hda2 swap swap defaults 0 0
>
> Not this:
>
> /dev/hda3 swap swap defaults 0 0

I meant /dev/hdb2 and /dev/hdb3.

Sorry.

ray wrote:
> Do it by hand. The
> Slackware installer should have done that for you, but I don't think you
> need to reinstall. In fact, you probably shouldn't have to reboot either.
......
> /dev/hdb2 swap swap defaults 0 0
>
> Ray

....so I edited the fstab file by hand and added the lines above and
without need to reboot ( or reinstall...) the swap partition is now
recognised.
Thanks a lot everyone.
Just wondering if to use a primary partition for swap is a proper...
santo