Re: swap partition too small

[Christopher Sekiya <wileyc@example.com>]

On Wed, Jul 12, 2000 at 11:25:12PM +0900, Tod McQuillin wrote:

> Why does linux have to have its swap space initialised with mkswap before
> use? Most other unix just starts scribbling on the swap without concern
> for what's there already.

The original idea was to keep one from accidentally using a non-swap partition
as swap.

<heresy>

Of course, that's only half of the check.  Having the kernel check for a valid
swap signature is all well and good, but it's also rather important that mkswap
verifies that the target partition type is 0x82 ... but, of course, that would
_never_ happen so such a sanity check is clearly unnecessary ;)

<\heresy>

-- Chris