Swapfile problem in 6? (was: 6.0: during kernel compilation, 'kernel linking' freezes PC)

[Rob]

--- Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 14, 2005 at 05:52:42PM -0800, Rob wrote:
> > 
> > Problem kind of solved:
> > 
> > As this PC has only 32 MB Ram, I add a swapfile.
> > However, when I compile the new kernel without the
> > swapfile, all goes well.
> > 
> > Since the freeze is very reproducible with the
> > swapfile (always at the 'kernel linking' stage),
> > and immediately disappears when I do not use the
> > swapfile, I think there's something wrong with
> > using swapfile in 6.0. Is it?
> > 
> > I do this:
> > 
> >  dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1024k count=128
> >  chmod 0600 /swapfile
> >  mdconfig -a -t vnode -f /swapfile -u 0
> >  swapon /dev/md0
> > 
> > Is this OK?
> 
> Looks fine, and I use this myself (on a much larger
> scale).  Are you
> sure it's freezing and not just taking a really long
> time?  Whenever
> your system is swapping performance will be
> terrible, and that goes at
> least double for swapping onto a file and not a
> device.
> 
> What happens if you leave it for an hour or two (or
> overnight)?

I left it overnight twice for performing this
'kernel linking' stage. In both cases the machine
remained dead.
Without the swapfile, this 'kernel linking' stage
completes in just about less than a minute.

So I think it's not my impatience, but there is
another problem with my swapfile or with 6 :).

Rob.



		
__________________________________ 
Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click.
http://farechase.yahoo.com