Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
one thing to point out is "cp -a". a while ago i did something similar with /usr/local, except i only used "cp -rp". of course all the /usr/local/lib symlinks were destroyed :( j. On Sunday, October 19, 2003, at 03:28 PM, William Kenworthy wrote: No hassles, go to single user, copy /var to the new disk, rename the old /var to /var-old, mkdir /var and mount the new /var. reboot and ignore any related error messages on the way down. Clean up at leisure. Have done this a few times now, used to use a boot disk, but the method above works fine. Have never bothered with a symlink as its messy from a maintenance point of view (seen sun systems where someone had moved directories all over the place, sometimes multiple times and symlinked each time - what a mess!). BillK On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 01:33, Meph Istopheles wrote: Hey BillK & all, Anyway, before I start this process, anyone have any comments on the other question in that post: Any hassles involved in moving var from hda to hdd ~after~ installing gentoo? After all, I could set a link on hda, right? Meph -- William Kenworthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
No hassles, go to single user, copy /var to the new disk, rename the old /var to /var-old, mkdir /var and mount the new /var. reboot and ignore any related error messages on the way down. Clean up at leisure. Have done this a few times now, used to use a boot disk, but the method above works fine. Have never bothered with a symlink as its messy from a maintenance point of view (seen sun systems where someone had moved directories all over the place, sometimes multiple times and symlinked each time - what a mess!). BillK On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 01:33, Meph Istopheles wrote: > Hey BillK & all, > > Anyway, before I start this process, anyone have any comments > on the other question in that post: > > Any hassles involved in moving var from hda to hdd ~after~ > installing gentoo? After all, I could set a link on hda, right? > > Meph -- William Kenworthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
Hey BillK & all, Thanks for your responses. > Only logical thing I have seen is that its recommended to be in > the (physical) middle of the disk to hopefully minimise seek > times. It appears that gentoo's kernel is set this way, so I'll go with it. > Order in the /dev hierarchy is irrelevant, its a physical > thing. Sure, I can see that. I'm fairly familiar with Linux fdisk; it ~does~ place partitions, named appropriately (hda1 at the beginning, hda2 in the middle, hda3 at the end -- if one does it in order), where one wants them, though. > You will gain more by using a separate swap disk, striped > multiple swap or extra ram Oh, I'm sure, but I've been very pleased with my old Dell P-III since I'd upped the ram to 512 & added hard disks. I've had faster pentiums & I have an Athalon 1.1GHz under my desk for my occasional Windows need, but I've preferred my P-III over the others since the beginning. Anyway, before I start this process, anyone have any comments on the other question in that post: Any hassles involved in moving var from hda to hdd ~after~ installing gentoo? After all, I could set a link on hda, right? Meph -- Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last. -Marcus Aurelius -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
On Sunday 19 October 2003 14:21, Jason Stubbs wrote: > On a side note, I found in my research a site talking about compressed ram > as an alternative to (a lot of) swapping. It said on that site that it's > available in ac-sources and wolk-sources. I checked kernel.coliavis.net > (??) and didn't see it in his patch list. wolk.sourceforge.net shows a > Memory eXpansion Technology though. I'm emerge wolk-sources now to see if > it's any good. Well, MXT is actually a hardware based memory compressor that "doubles your RAM". The patch is just support for it... Jason -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
On Sunday 19 October 2003 09:44, Jason Stubbs wrote: > On Sunday 19 October 2003 09:00, Donnie Berkholz wrote: > > On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 19:42, Spider wrote: > > > begin quote > > > On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:16:09 -0700 (PDT) > > > > > > Meph Istopheles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > > > > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > > > > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > > > > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > > > > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > > > > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. > > > > > > Its basically personal preference. I like to have it as second > > > partition (Beginning of drive) but thats just me.. Theres no perfect > > > recepie for it that I know of (since I don't know how to align it on > > > platters to make it "optimized) > > > > From what I've heard, beginning of drive is best since a drive can cover > > more area on the outside of the disc in the same amount of time rotating > > at the same speed. > > I thought sector 0 was at the inside of the disk like it is on a CDROM or a > floppy disk!? I'm not certain either, however. You were indeed correct. Data starts from the outside on a hard drive which means I've definately got my swap file in the wrong place. :-( More info here: http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/geom/tracks.html > As to whether the middle of the disk (to reduce seek times) or the outside > of the disk (to maximize bandwidth) is best, it would depend on how the > kernel pages memory. If it does it in 64kb blocks or such then the middle > is probably best as the page ins/outs would be interleaved with regular > i/o. On the otherhand, if it pages is mbs then the outside would be best. > Anybody know the size of a page? After a bit of research on this, I found out that the page size is architecture dependent and that most architectures support multiple page sizes. What linux uses however can be found in page.h. Here's an excerpt from /usr/src/linux/include/asm-i386/page.h: /* PAGE_SHIFT determines the page size */ #define PAGE_SHIFT 12 #define PAGE_SIZE (1UL << PAGE_SHIFT) #define PAGE_MASK (~(PAGE_SIZE-1)) For those that don't understand this, it means that the page size is 4kb. Sooo, I would say that the best place for the swap is in the middle of the hard drive. Think I might go and move my partitions around... On a side note, I found in my research a site talking about compressed ram as an alternative to (a lot of) swapping. It said on that site that it's available in ac-sources and wolk-sources. I checked kernel.coliavis.net (??) and didn't see it in his patch list. wolk.sourceforge.net shows a Memory eXpansion Technology though. I'm emerge wolk-sources now to see if it's any good. Regards, Jason -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
On Sunday 19 October 2003 09:00, Donnie Berkholz wrote: > On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 19:42, Spider wrote: > > begin quote > > On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:16:09 -0700 (PDT) > > > > Meph Istopheles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > > > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > > > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > > > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > > > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > > > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. > > > > Its basically personal preference. I like to have it as second partition > > (Beginning of drive) but thats just me.. Theres no perfect recepie for > > it that I know of (since I don't know how to align it on platters to > > make it "optimized) > > From what I've heard, beginning of drive is best since a drive can cover > more area on the outside of the disc in the same amount of time rotating > at the same speed. I thought sector 0 was at the inside of the disk like it is on a CDROM or a floppy disk!? I'm not certain either, however. As to whether the middle of the disk (to reduce seek times) or the outside of the disk (to maximize bandwidth) is best, it would depend on how the kernel pages memory. If it does it in 64kb blocks or such then the middle is probably best as the page ins/outs would be interleaved with regular i/o. On the otherhand, if it pages is mbs then the outside would be best. Anybody know the size of a page? Regards, Jason -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
Only logical thing I have seen is that its recommended to be in the (physical) middle of the disk to hopefully minimise seek times. Order in the /dev hierarchy is irrelevant, its a physical thing. You will gain more by using a separate swap disk, striped multiple swap or extra ram BillK On Sun, 2003-10-19 at 07:42, Spider wrote: > begin quote > On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:16:09 -0700 (PDT) > Meph Istopheles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hey, > > > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. > > Its basically personal preference. I like to have it as second partition > (Beginning of drive) but thats just me.. Theres no perfect recepie for > it that I know of (since I don't know how to align it on platters to > make it "optimized) > > > //Spider -- William Kenworthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
On Sat, 2003-10-18 at 19:42, Spider wrote: > begin quote > On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:16:09 -0700 (PDT) > Meph Istopheles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. > > Its basically personal preference. I like to have it as second partition > (Beginning of drive) but thats just me.. Theres no perfect recepie for > it that I know of (since I don't know how to align it on platters to > make it "optimized) From what I've heard, beginning of drive is best since a drive can cover more area on the outside of the disc in the same amount of time rotating at the same speed. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
begin quote On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 16:16:09 -0700 (PDT) Meph Istopheles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey, > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. Its basically personal preference. I like to have it as second partition (Beginning of drive) but thats just me.. Theres no perfect recepie for it that I know of (since I don't know how to align it on platters to make it "optimized) //Spider -- begin .signature This is a .signature virus! Please copy me into your .signature! See Microsoft KB Article Q265230 for more information. end pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
hi, every dist has a swap partition (unless you choose not to) and it isnt visible in the filesystem :-) On Sun, 2003-10-19 at 01:16, Meph Istopheles wrote: > Hey, > > I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install > docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a > particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I > remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll > probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing > on...unless someone tells me otherwise. > > Oh, my /home is on hdb, & I'm thinking of reformatting my > current hda (after I've successfully installed gentoo) -- which > I'm swapping with the current hdd for gentoo -- & putting /var > on it. Any hassles involved in moving var from hda to hdd > ~after~ installing gentoo? After all, I could set a link on hda, > right? > > Meph -- Regards, Redeeman () ascii ribbon campaign - against html e-mail /\- against microsoft attachments -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
[gentoo-user] Placement of /swap
Hey, I'm installing tomorrow & havn't seen it in either the install docs or on any Web page, but is gentoo optimised with /swap in a particular position? RH wants it at the end of a disk, I remember mdk wants it as the second partition, etc. I'll probably do /boot, then /, then /swap on the drive I'm installing on...unless someone tells me otherwise. Oh, my /home is on hdb, & I'm thinking of reformatting my current hda (after I've successfully installed gentoo) -- which I'm swapping with the current hdd for gentoo -- & putting /var on it. Any hassles involved in moving var from hda to hdd ~after~ installing gentoo? After all, I could set a link on hda, right? Meph -- Halley's Comet: It came, we saw, we drank. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
