Swap Step Skipped on Install

[efincoop]

I recently installed Vector Linux on 2 similar Dell Inspiron 4000 laptops.  I configured the hard drive for both with a Gparted live CD.  I partitioned each with a two ext3 Linux partitions (1 for the Linux OS/programs and 1 for data) and a swap partition (partition type = Linux Swap) that was approximately double the amount of installed RAM in megabytes.

On the one install it allowed me to specify and accepted the swap partition (/dev/hda2) during the install.  On the second install, when I selected the swap setup step, it displayed a message that said skipping swap setup and went on to set up the /root partition I attempted to go back, but it skipped swap set up every time.   

Can anyone tell me why this may have happened and how I can see if my one installation is actually using the swap partition even though it skipped the step of specifying the partition during the install?

[bigpaws]

My guess

Is that the swap partition was not recognized during the install.

Look at cfdisk and see if there is a partition dedicated to swap
or try cat /etc/fstab

To see if swap is being used you can check top there
is an entry for swap being used.

HTH

Bigpaws

[budulay]

Hi
My advise is to check that you have actually have a swap-type partition with fdisk.(#82, I believe)
Some time ago I accidently forget to save changes or something and then had a good headache finding what's wrong.

[efincoop]

Interesting. Thank you both for your suggestions.  I used cfdisk and noticed that the swap partion was labeled as Swap but I must of not selected the correct type when I formatted it.

I used cfdick to change the type to sawp and wrote the changes before exiting.

Now is there a way I can get VL to recognize the sawp partition and mount it / use it on boot up?

[bigpaws]

As root:

mkswap /dev/hda3
swapon /dev/hda3

add to /etc/fstab

/dev/hda3     swap          swap   defaults  0      0

NOTE: change the mount point as needed.

Bigpaws

[efincoop]

Thanks bigpaws!  I followed your instructions and rebooted.  I did a cat /etc/fsatb and the entry shows up as you listed.  Should the swap partition show up when I do a mount -l?  Is there some other way I can verify my changes worked, or is the results from cat /etc/fsatb enough?

[bigpaws]

You can look at top which should list. It is not listed
under mount -L.

You can also look at /proc/swaps which should show the information as well.

Bigpaws

[efincoop]

You can look at top which should list. It is not listed
under mount -L.

You can also look at /proc/swaps which should show the information as well.

Bigpaws

Thanks again 

top showed
Swap:   522104k total,        0k used,   522104k free,   112496k cached

/proc/swaps shows
Filename            Type      Size   Used   Priority
/dev/hda3                               partition   522104   0   -1

So it looks like my swap is up and running and I learned something new!