Fedora core 5, partitioning
 

I need a command to partition swap space On a Fedora core 5 install

The unpartitioned space is already available.
Does fedora 5 use swap partitions in the same way as redhats earlier distros.

And finally about how much swap is optimal w/ 220 mgs of ram.

Thanks

Hi, yes you will need swap, roughly 2.5 x your ram (550Mb) is widely considered to be right.
Use the Installer's partition manager (the 4th option in the drop down list), add swap space, then add a / (root) partition (use all remaining free space) for a sound basic installation.
If windows is installed, take care not to accidentally format or delete it.

edit: there is a dedicated forum for fedora, your post would get more replys there (probably) :)

edit: allow me to be the first to say "Welcome to LQ"

How much swap depends on two things: how much ram do you have to work with, and what kind of work are you doing that might max out the ram.

The more ram you have (1, 2, or more gig of ram), the less likely you will ever see swap in use unless you are doing something ram intensive, such as editing bit-mapped graphics or sound files.

The less ram you have (512 meg or less), the more likely you will need swap.

General rule of thumb: If ram is less than 1 gig, make your swap equal to or greater than the amount of ram (up to twice the size of ram, or more if working with sound or bit-mapped graphics).

If Fedora is already installed, and you need to format free space for swap, try cfdisk. It's text-based ala dos. It will show you partitions and free space. Use the arrow keys to move up or down the list. Select free space. Use the tab key to move among the options at the bottom of the screen to select format. You will have options of what to format it for. Select swap. Select Write and press enter to write the new partition table. Then Exit.

It would be a good idea to reboot before anything else to commit the changes, otherwise, you may end up with overlapping partitions. Reason: the partition table in use is the one you booted up with. The new table isn't recognized until you reboot, or something to that effect. I remade some partitions once without the reboot, and really screwed things up. Took quite a bit of research to learn my error. And quite a bit more work (including a reinstall and restoration of a backup) to correct my error.

If you have a free partition with FC5 already installed, from the terminal logged in as root, enter:

mkswap /dev/hdXn (Xn is the partition to use for swap)
swapon

If you don't have a free partition, but you have free raw formatted space, from the terminal logged in as root, enter:

fdisk /dev/hdXn
n (to create new partition, then answer the questions)
w (to commit the changes)
mkswap /dev/hdXn
swapon

You'll also need to edit /etc/fstab to have the swap space mounted during boot. Add a line such as:

/dev/hdXn none swap sw 0 0

Unless, of course, you want to swapon every time you boot.