Crafting and Configuring Swap with fdisk

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To format using fdisk and configure a swap partition, you'll need to follow these steps:

  • Open fdisk: Start by opening fdisk with the disk you want to partition. For example, if you want to partition /dev/sdb, you'd run:
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
  • Create a New Partition: Once in fdisk, type n to create a new partition.
  • Choose Partition Type: You'll be prompted to choose the partition type. For a swap partition, you'll typically use type 82, which is Linux swap.
  • Set Partition Size: Specify the size for your swap partition. This depends on your system's needs, but it's often recommended to make it at least as large as your system's RAM, especially if you plan to use hibernation.
  • Write Changes and Exit: After creating the partition, type w to write the changes to the disk and exit fdisk.
  • Format the Partition: Once the partition is created, you need to format it as a swap partition. You can do this using the mkswap command. For example:
sudo mkswap /dev/sdbx

Again, replace /dev/sdbx with the actual device name of your swap partition. You can check the new swap partition using the lsblk command. If it does not appear, try the swapon -a command to activate the new swap partition.

  • Make Swap Permanent: To ensure the swap partition is activated automatically on system boot, add an entry for it in the /etc/fstab file. Open /etc/fstab in a text editor, and add a line like this:
/dev/sdbx  none  swap  sw  0  0

Replace /dev/sdbx with the actual device name of your swap partition.

  • Verify Swap: Finally, you can verify that the swap partition is active and working correctly by using the free command:
free -h
  • This command will display information about memory and swap usage.

That's it! You've now created and configured a swap partition using fdisk.