Two questions concerning swap

[seeley]

Hi!
My 64 bit computer is broken and I must share a 32 bit laptop with other members of our family.
I'm writing a "HOWTO install 201012..." -> http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=62603
Because I could not boot from LMDE 201012/32 live, I burned a 64 bit medium (works well) and installed the new Debian on USB.
The computer I could use (but not now) has no swap, so in order to help people, please answer my two questions:
1. Normally a Linux installer asks to continue, if you have no swap;
what's about the LMDE installer, if you want to install Debian onto a hard disk without swap?
2. If you already have installed a Linux with swap partition and you add LMDE, does the Debian installer recognize it and format it
(as usually done by other Linux installers)?
seeley

[Aging Technogeek]

I just installed LMDE 64 bit on a desktop in multiboot with Mint 10 32 and 64 bit and WindowsXP Pro. I can say from my experience that

1. The LMDE installer will proceed with the installation even if no swap space is specified and

2. It will find and use the swap space installed by other distros.

[seeley]

hi!
Okay, thanks.
But what about:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62751
seeley

[Aging Technogeek]

It is possible that if LMDE is installed to a primary partition and the swap space is a logical partition inside of an extended partition, that LMDE will not see the swap space. On my install, swap and LMDE are both in the same extended partition so this would not be a problem.

It is also possible that the OP of that topic just had a bad installation. Or, as you said in your reply, swap was turned off. The answer will have to wait for the OP to post back and say if running swapon fixed things. Of course, if it did, the chances are better than even that we will not hear from that poster again in that topic.

[water spirit]

The 64bit installer missed the swap on my computers yet the original 32 bit installer worked OK. This is what one looks like,

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2,048 3,074,047 3,072,000 27 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 3,074,048 527,362,047 524,288,000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 527,362,048 738,545,655 211,183,608 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 738,556,369 976,768,064 238,211,696 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 804,096,000 845,107,199 41,011,200 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 968,382,198 976,768,064 8,385,867 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 738,556,371 804,093,951 65,537,581 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 937,011,200 968,380,415 31,369,216 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 845,109,248 886,069,247 40,960,000 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 886,071,296 937,009,151 50,937,856 83 Linux


blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/sda10 d9855af1-5496-4fb8-a060-9cdd911d830e ext4 Kubuntu-11.04(na
/dev/sda1 5E5E57035E56D37F ntfs System
/dev/sda2 28FE864AFE860FEC ntfs Windows-7-64bit
/dev/sda3 4062ABC162ABB9D4 ntfs Vista-64bit
/dev/sda4: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sda5 8c9a1ee1-0727-4955-b2e5-c64a946eceb6 ext4 Mint-10
/dev/sda6 33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1 swap
/dev/sda7 4e2a10f9-eb35-452d-871d-eb87ba7c4847 ext4 Sabayon-KDE
/dev/sda8 1a29315f-71a2-4567-abd5-5e4316ab9478 ext4 Ubuntu-11.04
/dev/sda9 68fed853-85b7-439f-b838-14f91d2408cd ext4 LMDE-64bit
/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos"

so each boot I have to

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sudo swapon /dev/sda6

[seeley]

Hi!
Thanks for your detailed report; I'm hoping that we can solve the problem - could you please post the output of

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cat /etc/fstab

seeley

Edit:
And, after "swapon": the output of

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sudo blkid

[water spirit]

cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'vol_id --uuid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=385ecae6-bd34-41c3-a524-974b8cd6d17f / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=c6876978-438f-4a1e-ae53-dacdf22d1e4a none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0

sudo blkid

/dev/sda1: LABEL="System" UUID="5E5E57035E56D37F" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Windows-7-64bit" UUID="28FE864AFE860FEC" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda3: LABEL="Vista-64bit" UUID="4062ABC162ABB9D4" TYPE="ntfs"
/dev/sda5: LABEL="Mint-10" UUID="8c9a1ee1-0727-4955-b2e5-c64a946eceb6" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda6: UUID="33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="Sabayon-KDE" UUID="4e2a10f9-eb35-452d-871d-eb87ba7c4847" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda8: UUID="1a29315f-71a2-4567-abd5-5e4316ab9478" TYPE="ext4" LABEL="Ubuntu-11.04"
/dev/sda9: UUID="68fed853-85b7-439f-b838-14f91d2408cd" TYPE="ext4" LABEL="LMDE-64bit"
/dev/sda10: UUID="d9855af1-5496-4fb8-a060-9cdd911d830e" TYPE="ext4" LABEL="Kubuntu-11.04(na"

/dev/sda9 / ext4 rw,errors=remount-ro 0 0

You can see the errors in fstab.

here is the one from Mint 10 same computer


cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=8c9a1ee1-0727-4955-b2e5-c64a946eceb6 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1 none swap sw 0 0

this works.

[seeley]

Hi!

# swap was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=c6876978-438f-4a1e-ae53-dacdf22d1e4a none swap sw 0 0

and

/dev/sda6: UUID="33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1" TYPE="swap"

You had a swap partition sda2, later on you had Windows on sda2:

/dev/sda2: LABEL="Windows-7-64bit" UUID="28FE864AFE860FEC" TYPE="ntfs

So, you have to edit your fstab:
You must be root
(e.g. gksudo gedit - with Gnome or su - , then gedit or another editor)
Supposing you have Gnome:

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gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

->
replace "c6876978-438f-4a1e-ae53-dacdf22d1e4a" -> "33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1"
and you can change the comment after "#": -> new swap on /dev/sda6 :20101231 (date to remember)
reboot and see

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mount

seeley

[water spirit]

The way the computer was setup was a dual boot with Win7 and Vista (sometime ago) and then the extended partition sda4 was created for the Linux installs, Sabayon has also been there for a while then Mint 9 which I removed and installed Mint 10 and they install properly. So it seems the LMDE installer is not working properly. This is Mint 10.


cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=8c9a1ee1-0727-4955-b2e5-c64a946eceb6 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1 none swap sw 0 0

[seeley]

Hi!
This fstab is okay!
seeley

[water spirit]

Hi,
It is 9:14 pm where I am at the moment Happy new year, yes that last fstab was from the Mint 10 partition I am in the kubuntu 11.04 one at the moment and it was the last install, after LMDE and it works also, here it is

cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda10 during installation
UUID=d9855af1-5496-4fb8-a060-9cdd911d830e / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# swap was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=33cc664f-fa84-4406-b7eb-9ff317cd7ac1 none swap sw 0 0

So should I change the LMDE one as you suggested ? it seems that the LMDE installer is the only one not working properly.

[seeley]

Hi!
1. Concerning the last fstab: I miss the end: "0 0" or "0 1".
Explanation: see my last post here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=62751
2. Yes, I would edit the file.
seeley

[water spirit]

0 0
I edited the last post, OK I will tomorrow and post the results. Thank you.

[water spirit]

I have edited fstab as your instructions and swap was activated during the boot, Thank you.

[seeley]

Hi!
Asking all who have installed LMDE 201012 or 201101 with swap partition:
Did you choose "Edit partitions" to start GParted? Then formatting a partition as linux-swap?
I did this, but the last step before installing (review) only showed "format sdaX , mount.../" - nothing about swap.
Usually (in all other Linux distributions I know) the swap partition appears and is marked to format (why format again I don't know).
I don't need a swap partition - I want to give a good advice to all who want to install LMDE with swap.
HOWTO: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=63013&p=362585#p362585
seeley

Edit:
I know, swap has no mount point (fstab: "none").
Maybe a row concerning swap is added in /etc/fstab during installation? Without mention it in the review?