[lug] Adding memory to a KRUD 7.x system

[Elyse Grasso]

On Saturday 24 November 2001 09:40 pm, you wrote:
> Elyse Grasso wrote:
> > 
> > On Wednesday 21 November 2001 12:23 pm, you wrote:
> > > Elyse Grasso wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I just ordered some more memory for my Linux laptop (Dell is having a
> > sale:
> > > > 25% off plus free shipping), and it occurs to me that 2.4.x kernels 
are
> > > > cranky about swap space vs physical ram size. When I upgraded from 
Redhat
> > 7.0
> > > > that came installed on the system to KRUD 7.1, the installer insisted 
on
> > > > increasing my swap space.
> > > >
> > > > I currently have (with 128 megs of ram):
> > > >
> > > > [root at xerxes /root]# swapon -s
> > > > Filename                        Type            Size    Used    
Priority
> > > > /dev/hda7                       partition       136512  26704   -1
> > > > /SWAP                           file            125944  0       -2
> > > >
> > > > I will be upgrading my memory to 512Megs, maxing out the machine.
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone know what I will need to do to increase the swap space?
> > > > Can I avoid repartitioning my 20 Gig hard drive as the installataion
> > package
> > > > seems to have done?
> > > > Would I be better off repartitioning my hard drive? Is there a way to 
do
> > that
> > > > without dumping and reloading the all of the partitions? (I have 
Partition
> > > > Magic on my other machine, so I have gotten spoiled.)
> > > >
> > > > Note: the Laptop came with Linux installed and is not dual boot. I 
should
> > be
> > > > receiving KRUD 7.2 any day now, and do plan to upgrade. (Should I wait
> > 'til
> > > > the new ram arrives and do both upgrades at once?)
> > > >
> > > > Elyse Grasso
> > > >
> > > > ps. I feel old. The very first hard drive I owned was 20 megs, and I
> > think I
> > > > still have an old hard drive mounted in one of my machines that is 
smaller
> > > > than 512 megs.
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
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 >
> > Very interesting, but can you answer my question about the best methods 
and
> > tools to use for increasing swap space on an existing system without
> > destroying the data partitions?
> 
> If you want to increase a partition that is bound on the upper edge by
> another partition, I don't know of any way. If you want to decrease
> another partition to leave room for expanding another next to it, I
> think it is a tough request. For various reasons, I'd say it is easy
> with some filesystems to expand the upper edge to consume more, but it
> is more problematic to change the lower cylinder edge (the partition or
> boot sector info is in the lower edge). Now if you have a chunk of
> unpartitioned space (or a partition that you don't need), then you can
> just turn that into swap (change its type ID in fdisk, then mkswap on
> it, update /etc/fstab, making it a copy of the existing swap, edited to
> be a different priority if it is on the same drive, and of course
> reflecting its actual partition name). In other words, it's easy to add
> swap in multiple partitions, its difficult to shrink anything as a means
> of opening up space. Someone here might know of some tools to help with
> that, you'd have to specify filesystem type, it has a strong influence
> on how possible it is to resize without destroying something in the
> partition.
> 
> So, do you have an unused partition you can turn into swap? Or do you
> have unpartitioned space you can partition and use as swap? Or must you
> resize something? If your swap partition itself has empty space to one
> side, it's easy, since you can comment out swap in /etc/fstab, then run
> swapoff for the partition, and destructively resize it without losing
> anything (this of course requires you to not be using so much memory
> that swap has to be on). In other cases of resizing, you'd have to give
> explicit information on exact geometry of the partitions, and their
> filesystem types.
> 
> D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com
> 
> > _______________________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
> Web Page:  http://lug.boulder.co.us
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> 
This is a Dell laptop that came preloaded with RedHat 7.0. If there was any 
free space on the drive the swap that resulted from the upgrade to 7.1 should 
be in a partition instead of that odd file based SWAP that the upgrade 
created, as reported by swapon.

I'd love to know how the 7.0 to 7.1 upgrade did that: I could do more of the 
same. I was hoping that the upgrade to 7.2 would notice the increased ram and 
do another round of swap increase, but the img file on the KRUD 7.2 cd won't 
load. (7.1 cds boot  fine, but the upgrade path for 7.1 to 7.1 doesn't seem 
to recheck the swap space.)