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

[Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>]

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