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I just did a full disk encryption installation and it created a swap partition. In most manual install guides I see people making a swap file instead. So am curious to know if there is any pros / cons to have one over the other? I understand you can have both, just want to get educated on the difference between the two approaches.

Aztek
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  • @guiverc Thanks for that link, I had seen it before. Reason I posted my question is to check if there has been any update since that qustion was posted (appx 4 years ago). I also noticed the question references Ubuntu 17.04 moving from partition to file. The most recent distro 20.04 actually creates a swap partition instead of a file, so it seems they moved back to partitions now? Was wondering if there was any change that drive that rollback? – Aztek Nov 28 '20 at 00:33
  • I believe you're wrong about default being swap partition, for the latest 20.10, nor prior 20.04 (though as I mainly test flavors that don't I can't be sure), My own box (hirsute) was using both (swap partition & swap file), until I needed space so I removed the swap file. I like swap partition as I can share it with the dual boot system (older Ubuntu), but I'm not aware of anything new over that duplicate. – guiverc Nov 28 '20 at 00:45
  • Another difference between a swapfile and a swap partition is that you need a resume_offset when using hibernate with a swapfile and not with a swap partition. – C.S.Cameron Nov 28 '20 at 03:24
  • @guiverc What I meant by most recent distro was the latest LTS version. That is is still 20.04. Just did a reinstall and didnt get any option to do a file vs partition. It just created a 1GB partition no questions asked. Sounds like they switched it back to a swap file in 20.10? – Aztek Nov 29 '20 at 02:43
  • There were many changes to booting in groovy, but not to swap that I can recall. "most recent distro" isn't very descriptive; latest stable release is 20.10 or the 2020-October release. Why can I mind-read that you're ignoring non-LTS releases if you don't say so? Also there are multiple ISOs available for 20.04, which use different installers (ubiquity, subiquity etc) so unless you're specific as to which you're using we can only guess at what you're talking about unless we're given that detail. For specific responses, we need specific details. – guiverc Nov 29 '20 at 02:53
  • If you want full control; the use "Manual Partitioining", "Something else" or like options as offered by whichever ISO & installer you've chosen to use (unstated in your question) – guiverc Nov 29 '20 at 02:54
  • @guiverc I downloaded the ISO from the Ubuntu website (https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop) and created a bootable USB to install. How do I get a different installer? Is there one that gives more control on the installation options? – Aztek Nov 29 '20 at 09:14
  • Ubuntu will use multiple swap partitions if you have them, plus a swapfile. to turn them all on type sudo swapon -a to list all the swap spaces being used type sudo swapon -s. – C.S.Cameron Nov 29 '20 at 10:45

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