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unused is wasted (lemmy.world)

this is right after closing qemu-kvm

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[-] RustyNova@lemmy.world 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I keep hitting the cache on my 32gb laptop. So yeah, I'm using it.

But I made the dumb mistake of using a swap partition instead of a swap file

[-] 3rat@lemmy.world 25 points 5 months ago

What are the differences between swap a cache file? Why do you prefer the last one?

[-] jodanlime@midwest.social 17 points 5 months ago

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/swap#Swap_file

I call them swap files but either is correct.

A swap partition is a part of your storage disk that is formatted for swap use. It could also be it's own disk for high performance systems, but mostly for HPC.

A swap file is basically an empty disk image file that you mount as swap, the OS will use it just like a swap partition.

I prefer swap files because I find them easier to manage. I can easily delete, move, or enlarge the swap file whereas the partition will take a bit more work and is a bit riskier to change. Changing partition layouts can get very messy.

I always recommend a swap file be created when setting up a new Linux machine, even if you have loads of RAM. Some applications will use swap space to help performance, but I also like the fact that if I do something really dumb and fill up the root partition I can delete my swap file to free up space immediately, fix the full disk problem, and then recreate the swap file.

[-] 3rat@lemmy.world 6 points 5 months ago

Thank you for your detailed explanation.

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this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2024
375 points (97.2% liked)

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