Long boot time and freezes
 

When Fedora Core 3 is booting, it spends about 10 minutes on "Enabling Swap Space." Why is this, and how can I fix it? Am I missing a swap partition or something? Should I reinstall FC3 before it's too late, this time with a swap partition? I think I have one though. Here is my partition table anyway:
http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/7...ontable8bg.png
Also, my computer will always freeze up at relatively random times. However, this happens generally when I am running the FC up2date utility. Is there another way that I can update everything? I think my kernel and utilties are in need of updating. When it's booting, it says Enabling Swap Space [OK] for a long time. The OK appears right when Enabling Swap Space does. So I'd guess that the swap space is enabled quickly, but why is it hanging for so long?

When I say freeze, the mouse stops moving, and the screen becomes like a frozen picture.

I have 512 MB of RAM.

Here's my ps -e.

Thanks for your help!

Are you sure you've configured your swap properly? According to your partition map it says "Type 8E" Normally it should say "Linux Swap" It's easy with partition magic, just create a partition formatted as Linux Swap. Then apply your changes.

Next, you'll need to configure your /etc/fstab file, I can't remember off hand how to do that, open fstab in an editor and make sure the line for swap points to the newly created swap partition.

If you format the "Type 8E" partition as "Linux Swap", it should be /dev/hda5 I think.

Hope that works!

I think I would have to agree with Vampirite.

Depending on your familiarity with the system (and how much you have invested into your current set-up) you may want to consider a fresh reinstall. I would only recommend this if you haven't invested a large amount of time and effort into what's aleady on your system.

Beyond that, manual configuration of fstab is probably the way to go. I only recommend that you be cautious of the waht and how of your changes to make sure it's done correctly.

Good luck...

I spent a ton of time getting ndiswrapper and my WLAN to work, so I don't think I'll reinstall. I have PartitionMagic 8 - are you saying I should reformat /dev/hda5 into a Linux Swap? Or should I take a piece of my current Windows partition and use that instead?

Also, how would I determine the size of the swap? I was told that 512 MB of RAM is sufficient enough without a swap file/partition.

You should be able to use fdisk or cfdisk to format the swap partition(a reinstall isn't necessary). 512 should be enough for swap. I would also make a backup of fstab before you edit it. Do a search in here for fstab and look at how swap should be edited.

I don't know how to use fdisk and cfdisk, so I guess I will just use PartitionMagic.

And would my fstab contain this line:


/dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0

cfdisk is easy to use, but use whatever you are comfortable with. Regardless, backup fstab before you edit it. make a copy of it called fstab.backup or something

Before I go ahead and start partitioning, I want to get something straight.
Which partition should I reformat into a Linux Swap type? Should I just carve out a new partition from existing space?

OK, Heres what to do:

- Open up partition magic, then delete the "Type 8E" Partition. (If you're not using it)

- Click on "Create new Partition" in the Partition Magic 8 side bar. Make it 512MB when going through the wizard.

- Apply changes.

- Reboot into linux, bring up a teminal window or something.

- Type this at the prompt:
- Now look at the partition table, the one at the bottom should be your swap partition. Note it down (/dev/?)

- Now go into a text editor, and open "/etc/fstab" Save it as "/etc/fstab.backup"

- Now go and open the original "/etc/fstab" add this line:
Make sure you replace /dev/? with the one that you wrote down.

- Save it.

That should work, however I do no know how to configure swaps in fstab and I am just using your example that you provided.

If it does not work, navigate to /etc then delete fstab, and rename fstab.backup as fstab. This will revert back to your original configuration.

It would be helpful if you uploaded your /etc/fstab file contents.