Re: [PATCH -mm 5/6] mm: Print first block offset for swap areas

Dave Jones
2006-09-21T22:11:20Z

On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 11:32:53PM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> On Wed 2006-09-20 21:54:38, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > In order to use a swap file with swsusp we need to know the offset at which
> > its swap header is located. However, the swap header is always located in the
> > first block of the swap file and it's quite easy to make sys_swapon() print
> > the offset of the swap file's (or swap partition's) first block.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <rjw@sisk.pl>
>
> ACK.
>
> (main point of this is that it changes user-visible printk, but that's
> probably okay, and way better than changing /proc files...)

As a user-interface, "read the number from dmesg that swapon printk'd
and add that to your boot command line" is pretty damned awful.
It means that it's next to impossible for a distro installer to
support suspend-to-swapfile. It's also incredibly fragile to rely
on that file always remaining in that part of the disk.

Dave