I have 6 Gigabytes of RAM in my computer and I found out that my swap partition was only 2 Gigabytes. So I needed to create a larger partition. I used the Gparted application to delete a useless Gentoo partition and then I created a 12 Gigabyte partition to use as swap space. This will be more than enough for any future requirements. This might also help the performance of my computer as well. I only needed to type sudo apt-get install gparted to install the partition manager and then I could create the new swap partition. After the partition has been created use the command below to switch on the new swap partition.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ sudo swapon /dev/sdb2 |
Then the new swap will be active. Here are the details of my new swap partition. As you can see, there is a 2 Gigabyte partition and a 12 Gigabyte partition that are both for swap.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdb [sudo] password for john: Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x03eec363 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdb1 * 2048 882687 440320 83 Linux /dev/sdb2 882688 25458687 12288000 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sdb3 717682688 971634687 126976000 83 Linux /dev/sdb4 971638782 976758783 2560001 5 Extended /dev/sdb5 971638784 976758783 2560000 82 Linux swap / Solaris |
This is how to list partitions by their uuid.
john@adeptus-mechanicus ~ $ ls -hula /dev/disk/by-uuid/ total 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 260 Feb 9 2013 . drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 120 Feb 8 23:27 .. lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 1323B2B1180C1879 -> ../../sdh2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 3fabc97d-c76a-4922-8705-5536e89cfd21 -> ../../sda2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 4282F11082F10965 -> ../../sda1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 4AD44F236B9F5FEA -> ../../sdh3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 52d826a6-7de5-45db-b693-dd7c7e82af37 -> ../../sda5 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:48 a6f66737-afea-48c3-9694-f6da22904d37 -> ../../sdb3 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:39 a87281f5-c64c-40dc-a3c4-5b10f475296e -> ../../sdb5 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:48 b1e29c2d-865c-4b81-a151-9a3c0db72e19 -> ../../sdb2 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 bc5b19b4-1674-42f6-9508-08b7b37f3645 -> ../../sdh1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 e01436e0-4aa5-420b-94aa-0b35bd00020e -> ../../sdb1 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Feb 8 22:38 F824FD9424FD565A -> ../../sdg1 |
Using the UUID I get for the /dev/sdb2 partition, I can use this to alter the /etc/fstab partition to set the 12 Gigabyte partition as the default swap partition. This is easily done in the VIM editor. Here I have replaced the swap entry with the new UUID of the partition and then saved the file. Upon rebooting the new larger swap partition will be used. Adding the entry for the swap partition using the UUID instead of the name of the partition; e.g /dev/sdb2 makes much more sense when you are removing and adding devices to the computer.
1 # /etc/fstab: static file system information. 2 # 3 # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a 4 # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices 5 # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5). 6 # 7 # 8 proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0 9 # / was on /dev/sdh1 during installation 10 UUID=bc5b19b4-1674-42f6-9508-08b7b37f3645 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1 11 # swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation 12 UUID=b1e29c2d-865c-4b81-a151-9a3c0db72e19 none swap sw 0 0 13 UUID=F824FD9424FD565A /mnt/Elements ntfs-3g rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096 0 0 14 15 UUID=1323B2B1180C1879 /mnt/MyMedia ntfs-3g rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096 0 0 16 UUID=4AD44F236B9F5FEA /mnt/MoreMedia ntfs-3g rw,nosuid,nodev,allow_other,default_permissions,blksize=4096 0 0 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ :wq |
After this I have a new swap partition and I have much more swap space to give me more breathing room.