[UFO Chicago] Enduser Journal #3

[Nate Riffe]

On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Thomas wrote:

> Now my questions:
> Is there actually any point to having a 256MB swap?  Would it cause
> any problems?  The kernel I'm using is 2.2.19-k if that has any sway.

I have a couple machines with over a gig of swap (multiple partitions on
multiple physical drives) and no, there's no real point to having that
much swap unless you've got disk space to burn.

Having multiple swap partitions is another issue, though.  If you've got
multiple physical drives, you can increasing performance under thrashing
conditions if your swap space is 1) split up between all of your drives
and 2) allocated from the middle of the drive.

>
> How would I stop a boot to change the run level?  I tried the
> "interactive" start up and even after saying "no" to everything it
> still went to run level 5 and killed my monitor.  For now I'm fine,
> but it'd be nice to know.

As an x86 kind of guy I am only familiar with LILO.  It is written in x86
assembly, so I presume that you're not using it.  Anyway, when LILO boots,
there's a prompt that says "LILO:"...  at which you specify an image and
its parameters.  What's a boot image?  Under Linux, a boot image is a
kernel, which is preregistered with LILO (the boot manager doesn't
understand filesystems, so it needs to be spoon fed the physical location
of the kernel when new kernels are installed).

So to recap:
At your boot prompt (equivalent of "LILO:") press tab.  You will get a
list of images, one which just scream at you saying "I am the one you're
looking for!".   Enter the name of that image followed by the runlevel you
want to boot into.  For example, if the image is called "linux" (the
main image usually is) and you want to boot into single user mode, type
"linux 1" and press enter.

>
> My biggest problem with Suse has been on my PowerBook, no PCMCIA
> support, so in a bit I plan to reboot, look at all the logs, and see
> if I can figure it out... but I'm pretty sure I'll have to post some
> questions.

PCMCIA support has never actually been a part of the official
Linus-approved kernel for a variety of techo-political reasons.  However,
most distributions use a patched kernel which does contain the pcmcia-cs
package, which is otherwise distributed separately from the official
kernel sources.  It is my understanding (I've never actually used Linux
with PCMCIA slots) that in order to use pcmcia-cs under most
distributions, the file /etc/conf.modules needs approriate modifications.
I have no idea what the appropriate modifications are, but they ought to
be available from linuxdoc.org... there must be a PCMCIA-HOWTO somewhere
on that site.

-Nate