puppy needs SWAP...?

[william7]

I have 200mb swap partiton but I don't that the puppy is used it.
Maybe I should to do somthing to force puppy to use swap...?
I have full install on hdd.

[Lobster]

Puppy runs from Ram
If you have low ram then a swap file is used

Which version of Puppy are you using? How much ram? I have always found 128MB is OK but usually run with 256MB if possible . . .

[Sit Heel Speak]

Open Menu - Utility - rxvt (i.e. a command-line console) and enter the command

free

and you will see swap space listed on its own line, if any (either a swap partition or a swap file) is in use.

I've used Puppies since 1.08r1 and Puppy always finds a swap partition if one is present on my system, no matter what drive or partition it's on. Handling of a swap partition has always been totally problem-free. If you have a swap partition (MUT should show it, if you do) and Puppy is not automatically finding it, please do tell us the details of your drive arrangement.

As for a swap *file*, that is a different animal. Puppy's handling of a swap file has varied among versions. With regard to 2.17, I'm not sure it is safe to make pronouncements about "how Puppy uses a swapfile" until Barry is done tinkering with Puppy Universal Installer--I could tell you what was true yesterday and it might be false today.

Best to use a swap partition if you can at all create one. 128MB if you have 128MB of RAM or less, 256MB if you have 129-256MB, 512MB if you have over 256MB of RAM. I know Sage will dispute these numbers, but they have worked well on the systems I have, rangeing from 48MB of RAM to 2GB.

[Sage]

Only a tiny bit, SHS! Best regard 256Mb as the upper limit for a swap partition for Puppy however much main memory is present. The tricky issue comes with low resource old machines. Realistically, the smallest workable memory for present versions of Puppy is ~48Mb, although less will boot in some circumstances. Console-only is a separate topic. For 48Mb then, something around 60Mb swap space is good. If you want more, add it as a separate drive - an old 2.5" 120Mb laptop unit is terrrific - low power, quiet and small. For 96Mb, use anything up to ~128Mb swap partition. Beware of using too much. There was some argument about this a few months ago, but since then I have checked my observations. Despite the theory, Puppy will find and use swap space, sometimes in preference to main memory if it is struggling with a larger app. This is really bad news as you will hear your disc thrashing itself to an early demise.
On the old bangers, it is sometimes difficult to obtain sufficient memory or there aren't enough slots (a 4Mb strip doesn't go far these days). Furthermore there are tons of old HD <~500Mb out there which can be pressed into service for compact distros. What I have found is that it is worthwhile adding just 32Mb of swap space - anything better than nothing! Just listen carefully for the sounds of self-immolation...

[william7]

Well I have 512 mb Of RAM and 200mb swap/
this my free:

Code: Select all

 # free
              total         used         free       shared      buffers
  Mem:       514740       206772       307968            0        22848
 Swap:       208836            0       208836
Total:       723576       206772       516804

So I have enough memory.

[Dougal]

The swap partition is mounted but not used, since you've got plenty of memory.
If you'll do somehting that uses a lot of memory, then the kernel will eventually start using it.

[Bruce B]

As for the discussion at hand puppy needs SWAP...?, my feelings are if not having a paging device is a big deal for some reason, don't have one.

If 'need' means necessary - which it seems to - the answer is NO. Linux will just do the best it can with what it has. If it doesn't do so well, at least you don't have to have a paging device.

As for me, I always setup a paging device, usually a partition. I've never ran into any ill effects or found reason not to setup a paging device.

[Sit Heel Speak]

Only a tiny bit, SHS! Best regard 256Mb as the upper limit for a swap partition for Puppy however much main memory is present...

I must correct what I said above. On a 256MB laptop, booting any Puppy 2.xx from a USB key, I assure you, a 256MB swap partition is not enough. You will find this out the hard way, if you attempt to download say Rudy Puppy or Lighthouse Puppy with its accompanying .sfs files, or any movie of one-hour running time. So, if booting from a USB key, I recommend a 512MB swap partition. Except, if you are simultaneously manipulating very large images in Gimp, or if you are doing a sizeable compile in the meanwhile (say, Open Office), or if you are working with the National Geographic's Topo topographical maps database under WINE, or if you are downloading a two-hour movie, then you had better use a 1GB swap partition.

[Sage]

Well, your qualification changes things, SHS, but what you say is worrying. It is never a good idea to rely on swap space. Believe me, you can hear the rattling in your HD as it pages out, with the inevitable consequence. In these circumstances, other expedients are to be preferred.

[Sit Heel Speak]

Well, your qualification changes things, SHS, but what you say is worrying. It is never a good idea to rely on swap space. Believe me, you can hear the rattling in your HD as it pages out, with the inevitable consequence...

True. Been there, done that, got the stack of dead drives to prove it. I should here state that I always maintain backups across the network onto other drives of everything on all my disks, and it doesn't bother me financially if I have to replace one or two horsed-to-death hard disks a year. Perhaps a better solution would be to use dirt-cheap USB flash keys as swap partitions. Conventional wisdom is that doing so will make the flash key die early, but at

http://www.storagesearch.com/ssdmyths-endurance.html

it is reported that today's USB flash keys no longer are so delicate.

[PaulBx1]

Interesting site, thanks. Although I think the devices he is talking about are not the low-end USB keys, but larger, more expensive and sophisticated solid state disks (which ought to have better load-leveling technology, spare flash blocks, etc.). So maybe it's still a worry. However when one dies, just buy another!

[bobwrit]

i have 119 MB of ram(the most my prossesor can handle) for puppy but i've wondered weather or not using swap can make it go beyond the prossesor's limit.

[Sit Heel Speak]

i have 119 MB of ram(the most my prossesor can handle) for puppy but i've wondered weather or not using swap can make it go beyond the prossesor's limit.

What CPU is it? All Intel CPU's from the Pentium MMX forward, and AMD CPU's from the K6 forward (maybe even the K5, not sure) are capable of addressing 4GB or more of RAM, so I presume what you mean is that 119MB is the maximum you can physically install in your memory slots. Yes, a swap partition will raise your effective amount of RAM. So will a swap file, but the way Puppy sees and uses a swap file is limited compared to how Puppy uses a swap partition. A swap partition is better. If you have nothing on the disk you need to save, use GPartEd to shrink your present partition by 128MB and then add a 128MB swap partition and see if speed improves.

[lotech]

I always have problem running Puppy off USB flash with 256M memory, just now I finished a firefox update but it won't start anymore due to lack of memory, I can't bring it back even on a 512M machine I think the s/w is crashed, I will have to reinstall it again, so 384M is a real usable lower limit without swap.

[Sage]

We note that bobw is concerned about the weather, but the floods have passed in the UK now, so guess it depends on whether you live over hear (sic).
USB flash isn't the answer, SHS. What we are about with Puppy is extending the life of old kit, including HD s. Killing them is no solution. Neither is flashing the cash! So it's a good idea to get it right! So many folk struggle with this issue.
As for lotech, I fear you have other problems. 160Mb is sufficient to run Puppy with SMonster, so it should run Firefox without problems. Once we convince Barry to decamp to Opera, all these issues should disappear...

[lotech]

I've the memory problem ever since 2.14 if I remember right, I don't know what are the other problems, may be it is only Firefox.

[Sage]

Have you run a 'memtest'? Are you using memory compatible and correct speed for the rest of your HW? Have you set the correct memory parameters in BIOS?

[bobwrit]

i have 119 MB of ram(the most my prossesor can handle) for puppy but i've wondered weather or not using swap can make it go beyond the prossesor's limit.

What CPU is it? All Intel CPU's from the Pentium MMX forward, and AMD CPU's from the K6 forward (maybe even the K5, not sure) are capable of addressing 4GB or more of RAM, so I presume what you mean is that 119MB is the maximum you can physically install in your memory slots. Yes, a swap partition will raise your effective amount of RAM. So will a swap file, but the way Puppy sees and uses a swap file is limited compared to how Puppy uses a swap partition. A swap partition is better. If you have nothing on the disk you need to save, use GPartEd to shrink your present partition by 128MB and then add a 128MB swap partition and see if speed improves.

i'm using an old amd K6 3d prossesor from 1998 . i have a 128 MB ram chip in right now.

[Sit Heel Speak]

i'm using an old amd K6 3d prossesor from 1998 . i have a 128 MB ram chip in right now.

Should be no problem then. Back up anything first on the disk that you want to keep, and then use GPartEd to shrink the existing partition by 128MB and then make the unallocated space now into a Linux swap partition.

You may need to boot from a live CD using puppy pfix=ram, or else in your grub config file add pfix=ram to the kernel line, so that the hard disk is unmounted when you use GPartEd on it.

Using GPartEd is fairly straightforward, but if you get stuck let us know.

[bobwrit]

when i resize my only partition at the monment(down about 512 so i can use, without puppy freezing, netbeans) it automaticly goes back to filling all the space on the disk... when i try to do both in one session(both in the pending oporations one after the other) it stop upon the creation of the swap with libparted error messages saying

trying to write block 128-128 outside of device /dev/hda

i have used gparted to partition my HD before without a problem.