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Old 09-01-2014, 02:13 PM
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rcheshire (Rowland)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Astro_Bot View Post
That mounts a temporary file system at the /tmp folder, which has the effect of wiping the /tmp folder at shutdown (when the temporary filesystem is unmounted). It's a useful security measure (in some circumstances) but doesn't "extend memory" and in fact, tmpfs is usually (I think always) coded to use memory rather than reside on disk. I use this mechanism for certain small system directories that would otherwise store permanent files that I would rather be transient.

As for memory management: The default Swap partition setup by the distro installer is probably sufficient - swap is the equivalent of Windows' page file, i.e. the swap space where memory pages are stored when not actively in use, assuming memory is ever full enough to cause it to be used. A swap entry in /etc/fstab is also written by the installer but needs no alteration, unless you want to encrypt it. You can adjust the size of the Swap partition during installation if you think it's too small, but usually the installer picks a healthy size based on system RAM size. The Swap partition can also be re-sized manually, and its (new) full size will be used at next boot up.
That's a good explanation - and you are correct. I have been using tmpfs to free up space for certain programs that lodge temporary files and eventually limit space on the disk. Wiping tmp at shutdown is handy. Alternatively, with Pixinsight I moved the location to my home directory on a separate partition.

Yes the installer usually gets swap right. I started on Slackware a long time ago, compiling kernels, partitioning disks, installinv drivers and so on. But its a distant memory.
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