Same Swap for two Linuxes?

artificialGekko · 04-22-2005, 07:07 PM

Is it a good idea to use one and the same swap-partition for two diferent Linux distributions installed in a dual-boot-system? I figure they don't run at the same time, but I don't know if anything is left on the swapdisk after Linux shuts down that could be mangled when using the same swapdisk with another Linux then...

sasho · 04-22-2005, 07:10 PM

It's a good idea.

reddazz · 04-23-2005, 02:58 AM

I use one swap partition for all my Linux distros and I everything works fine.

bigjohn · 04-24-2005, 10:33 AM

The most that I had when I ran mulitple distros was 3, they had common /boot, /swap and /home partitions. Only the /root was seperate - I never did manage to get 2 booting at the same time!

regards

John

trickykid · 04-24-2005, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by artificialGekko
I figure they don't run at the same time, but I don't know if anything is left on the swapdisk after Linux shuts down that could be mangled when using the same swapdisk with another Linux then...

Once you shutdown or reboot, anything in swap is wiped out. And swap should rarely be used doing routine computer stuff. If you notice you ever start using a lot of swap, either you need more ram or something is wrong with your ram.

Shade · 04-25-2005, 12:11 AM

The only time it's an issue is if you use software-suspend/hibernate. Ram is saved to swap in that circumstance, and you could potentially lose quite a bit of data if you brought up another distro after suspending.

--Shade

blabla · 04-25-2005, 03:26 AM

I've als got one swap for two distros and everything works fine.

Does anyone have any idea how this will work with the new software (incl. in Suse 9.3) where you can have any number of OSs running concurrently?

Cheers

Ingo

artificialGekko · 04-26-2005, 08:38 AM

Thanks for your answers.

And also sharing things like the /home-partition on multiple linuxes is a pretty awesome idea!

abisko00 · 04-26-2005, 08:43 AM

It could be a little more complicated to share /home than sharing swap. You may want to have different custom configurations that use the same filename. I hope I do not violate the forum rules when I post this link (since it is in german):
http://www.linux-user.de/ausgabe/200...tri/index.html
They have some interesting hints how to accomplish a common /home.

blabla · 04-26-2005, 08:53 AM

common home partitions might be undesirable as, depending on which distros you are planning to install, they might interfere with each other's stuff... (different version of KDE, Gnome etc.).

you might prefer to have an extra multimedia partition and one for work, but there is no real reason to separate the two...

have fun

ingo