[ale] On swap space (was Re: who is eating my drive)

[Jim Kinney]

I know the extended partition stuff is DOS relic configuration workarounds.
Does a Linux system really care about where a partition is? Is it just
"drive space" as far as the kernel is concerned or are partitions in the
extended one treated differently? This is only in reference to modern SATA
drives. I know old kernels with really old drive (early IDE stuff) it did
matter.

The only thing I know of still is where the boot kernel is located (under a
4G limit - still a 32 bit thing?).

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 5:44 PM, Pat Regan <thehead at patshead.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 31 May 2011 16:05:47 -0400
> The Don Lachlan <ale-at-ale.org at unpopularminds.org> wrote:
>
> > I can think of no reasons you would deliberately put a primary
> > partition behind the extended partition.
>
> The most likely time for it to happen is if you run out of primary
> partitions and you want to split one of the earlier ones up into two
> (or more) partitions.  I'm sure someone has done that before :)
>
> > Regular paging between physical RAM and swap space can be expensive
> > to a system's performance; I would say that we shouldn't be paging
> > in/out often, if at all, but paging out is A Good Thing <tm>.
>
> If a system is accessing swap often enough that the speed of the swap
> space makes a significant difference then it is most likely time for a
> memory upgrade.  That's all I'm trying to point out :)
>
> > I would also counter that I have never, EVER, seen anyone
> > deliberately use the start of a disk for faster access unless they
> > were using it for swap. If you want to put your most I/O intensive
> > partition at the front of the disk, that absolutely makes sense - and
> > as soon as I find someone who does that, I'll toggle my bit to 1. :)
>
> There's a good chance you've inadvertently done exactly this on your
> own systems.  Anyone creating smallish root/var partitions near the
> front of the drive are speeding up access to some of the most important
> files on the system.  :)
>
> Pat
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III

As long as the general population is passive, apathetic, diverted to
consumerism or hatred of the vulnerable, then the powerful can do as they
please, and those who survive will be left to contemplate the outcome.
- *2011 Noam Chomsky*
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