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Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1997 10:29:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Doug White <dwhite@gdi.uoregon.edu>
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To: Jonathan Sturges <jonathan@cc.odu.edu>
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Subject: Re: Can Linux/FreeBSD share swap?
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On Thu, 6 Feb 1997, Jonathan Sturges wrote:

> I was wondering if Linux (RedHat 4.0, kernel 2.0.25) and FreeBSD (2.1.6
> or 2.2) could share a swap partition.  I want to run both OSes, but I'm 
> not swimming in disk space, and it seems silly to allocate 2 separate 
> swap partitions, one for each OS.

This is trickier than it sounds.  FreeBSD's swap space is located within
it's own slice, likewise for Linux.  The problem is that one system can't
read the other's disklabel, so it can't figure out just where the swap is.
This question has been asked before, take a look through the mail
archives.

> >From what I've seen so far, this doesn't look easy.  FreeBSD understands
> ext2fs, so I was thinking maybe a swap file on an ext2fs partition,
> rather than a dedicated swap partition, might be the "common ground"
> that both can access.  I haven't tried this yet, however.

A vn swapspace on ext2fs?  That might be pushing it since ext2fs support
isn't exactly foolproof, and I don't know if vn swap is even supported on 
non-FFS filesystems. 

Doug White                              | University of Oregon  
Internet:  dwhite@resnet.uoregon.edu    | Residence Networking Assistant
http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~dwhite    | Computer Science Major