tinycore

[cast-fish]

Markus

i see...

so is there any added advantage using a swap "file" with TCL.

My laptop already has a seperate 1 gig partition that is just for swap and is empty...

would it be possible to also include a swap "file" of say 512 meg in the same
drive as where the TCE folder is?

i was reading this article here...where is says swap "file" half way down.

any usefulness there for my laptop?

yes.

Vince.

[bmarkus]

swap is used only when system is out of RAM. If you have enough RAM it may happen that system will not touch swap space, doesn't matter how much you have. All depends on available RAM and applications you are using. Check usage in a terminal with command free

Adding swap which will be never used doesn't hurt system but a lost resources.

[maro]

Just to throw in my 2 cents ...

For me the question of swap file vs. swap partition is largely a matter of convenience. Lets say 10+ years ago I spend quite some time and effort in trying to find the "perfect balance" by creating a lot of different partitions for several Windows (98 + NT, later replaced by 2000) and Linux (e.g. SuSE) installations on a single 30 GB disk. It took a while and in hind sight I never got it right. Sure, all the different OS were booting, but somehow I always ran out of space in one file system and had maybe too much in another one. The swap partition for the Linux system was at one stage deemed particular "wasteful". In the end I've come to the conclusion that I tried to be too clever for my own good.

Nowadays I'd always prefer to use a swap file as I could put it on pretty much any file system (e.g. EXT[2-4], or even VFAT or NTFS) and (provided the file system it resides on is mounted) the swap file could become my swap space. No need to engage in re-partitioning to adjust sizes. If I need more swap space I can easily create a larger swap file, and if the file system it is currently on does not have the required additional space I might be able to shift it to somewhere else.

So, if you already have a swap partition and you are happy with it's size then by all means use it for TC. OTOH I for one would not want to create such a partition any more as I'd rather have only a minimal number of (larger) partitions on my disks.

[cast-fish]

Maro

yes...

i understand your point and somewhat agree with your logic.

This laptop already has a swap partition but according to what i read, you can further improve
swapping performance by introducing an additional swap "file" or additional swap "partitions (preferrably on different physical devices)

when i tried to make a swap "file" in the same partition as TCE it did not seem to like the commands
so i will have to try it again.

I am merely trying to get some better performance from this laptop by using more than a single
swap (element)

thanks

VInce.

[Rich]

Hi cast-fish
I doubt you will see any performance improvements by putting multiple swap files/partitions on the same drive
since the drive can only access one of them at a time. Although it's possible if the kernel can use multiple drives
for swap space, it could interleave reads and writes between drives for some gain in performance. Whether it
would even be noticeable is another question since accessing a drive is several orders of magnitude slower
than accessing RAM.

[bmarkus]

Talking about performance, swap partitions is better than swap file. This is another question, whether you recognise the difference or not.

[cast-fish]

Yes

thanks for the head up

nope...i don't really know the  difference or why it exists...."file" versus "partition"

i don't understand your theory about "magnitudes" and ram...

i honestly don't know

just now i started a "ram" drive in win32 and the improvement running APPS from it is so clear....(like you say about ram speeds)

i am not sure about TCL and how it treats stuff when in the exhausted RAM situation. (my ram is often exhausted)........i figured if my swapping is interleaved and therefor better....then it can only improve TCL's performance...

but like i say...i don't know....sorry

V.

[cast-fish]

it this one  i used   (ImDisk Virtual Disk ) freeware in win32 

somehow i don't think TCL is the exact same principle as "ram drives" is it?

V

[Rich]

Hi cast-fish

i don't understand your theory about "magnitudes" and ram...

Sorry, accessing swap on a hard drive is at least 100 to 1000 times slower than accessing swap in RAM.

just now i started a "ram" drive in win32 and the improvement running APPS from it is so clear...

If you are referring to the apps startup time, thats a one time boost you get at the expense of having the program
twice in RAM, once on the ramdisk and once in RAM where it is running. If you are referring to how fast the app
performs its function, that is most likely because whatever data files it works on were copied to the ramdisk.

[cast-fish]

Ye

i dunno Rich...the whole darn thing just seems to fly in win32.....with that ram drive. I installed
chrome to it....and the whole  thing is improved....much

i guesse ,my theory above won't translate over to TCL at all.........i assume TCL manages ram much more differently....... and i never actually put a "swap file" into  ram...

V

[Rich]

Hi cast-fish
You can set up a ramdisk under Linux, but there wouldn't be any point in putting a swap file on it since for every
Meg of RAM you allocate to it means one Meg less of RAM the kernel has to work with, which means one more
Meg it would be forced to swap.