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I have installed Ubuntu in my Dell-Inspiron-N5010 laptop today and it was looking like a complicated one, without knowing about the partition thing, So the result of that is, I can't access to a part of storage (means hidden) if there is any chance where i can repair that through the live CD or by other means?

LazyBolt_1998
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3 Answers3

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To question stated in the title: Swap partition is, simply said extension to your RAM. When system uses almost whole RAM and there are some less used applications, core moves to the SWAP partition in order to save RAM space. What is more, if you hibernate your computer, whole content of RAM is placed to SWAP. That's why it should be at least the size as your RAM.

If you feel like you lost too much space, you can easily corrext it via liveCD or liveUSB. Simply boot in live mode and open gparted (if not installed, install it by typing into terminal sudo apt install gparted). There you can make changes to your existing partitions. In general, try not to touch /boot partition. Also, don't forget to make SWAP as big as your RAM (or twice the big, if you have less than 4GBs of RAM). If you would need help with gparted, follow this simple guide http://gparted.org/display-doc.php%3Fname%3Dhelp-manual

Michal Polovka
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SWAP = Virtual RAM, extension for the physical RAM, used only when needed. Swap concept is nothing new, it is used by Windows too, but in a different form.

In Windows, when RAM is fully used (100%), it will automatically be extended by using free space on C:\ partition. If C:\ is fully used, the mechanism of extended RAM fails and Windows get stuck on blue screens. You can manually assign Windows to use free space from other partitions as swap, but that's a rather difficult task (and dangerous) for the usual user.

Swap in linux is smarter than that, by keeping swap space in a reserved (separated) partition, always available to get into action, whenever necessary.

ipse lute
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Swap partitions are used to create a bigger working area than system RAM, they are mostly not needed now that RAM is cheap and plentiful.

One other use for swap is as the storage for suspend/hibernate modes, without a swap partition you won't be able to do that.

Amias
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