# How to change gimp swap file directory to another disk?



## chenly (May 22, 2002)

How can you specify that you want the gimp to use a different disk for its swap files?


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## chenly (May 24, 2002)

Doesn't ANYONE know how to do this, or is it not possible?


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## BSDimwit (May 24, 2002)

My experience is mostly on FreeBSD and UFS but unless I am mistaken, if you create a swap partition on another drive, the OS will take advantage of it. Its probably not possible to specify which disk the gimp will swap on(unless your only swap is on the other drive).

I really do need to learn a bit more about the FS that macosx uses...  but thats for another day.  I doubt this helps you any but I thought I would share my knowledge of Freebsd, since its so similar in many ways.


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## chenly (May 24, 2002)

What is the BSD syntax for indicating a different disk? For example, *cd /users/BSDimwit* changes the working directory to BSDimwit's user folder, but what if it's on a different disk from the one you're using at the moment? Isn't it something like *Volumes: [diskname]/users/BSDimwit*?


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## BSDimwit (May 24, 2002)

You have to think of both of your hard drives as being part of the same filesystem.  Consider this example.

/ root partition is on the first drive
/var first drive
/sbin  first drive
/bin first drive
/usr second drive

Ok so in our example everything but the /usr directory is the first drive and /usr is on the second

Now the question is, what make it so that the computer knows where to look when you want to change to the /usr directory...  the /etc/fstab file is where this takes place.   During bootup, the /etc/fstab file is consulted so that it knows where to mount a particular drive in the file system.

here is a copy of what my fstab looks like on my freebsd system.  Darwin must have a similar mechanism for mounting the file system.

# Device                Mountpoint      FStype  Options         Dump    Pass#
/dev/ad2s1b             none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/ad2s1a             /               ufs     rw              1       1
/dev/ad2s1f             /tmp            ufs     rw              2       2
/dev/ad2s1g             /usr            ufs     rw              2       2
/dev/ad2s1e             /var            ufs     rw              2       2
/dev/acd0c              /cdrom          cd9660  ro,noauto       0       0
/dev/acd1c              /cdrom1         cd9660  ro,noauto       0       0
proc                    /proc           procfs  rw              0       0


As you can see this file tells the computer which physical piece of harware is to be mounted, where in the filesystem it gets mounted, what type of filesystem it is, and whether or not to mount it read/write, or write only, or swap etc... it also tells the computer where any dumps should go in the case of a problem.  Now I just looked on my mac and the file I have is empty, but somewhere there has to be another mechanism that tells macosx where and how to mount the various drives into the file system...

Is it clearer now?


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## chenly (May 24, 2002)

testuser: if one types */Volumes/swap/gimp* (on my system, at least) into the gimp's preferences panel under directories (in the bottom blank, not the top) *does* change the gimp's swap file to that location.

BSDimwit: thank you for clarifying the disk changing operation under BSD CLI. I do understand that my two partitions are seen as parts of the same filesystem by Darwin; all I needed to put this into action, as well as the gimp issue, was the syntax, which you were so kind to provide.

Everyone: I am a longtime Photoshop user; nonetheless, I can't recommend the gimp strongly enough; of course Photoshop is without peer (nothing else is even close, if you ask me), and Photoshop Elements provides a welcome solution for not-so-serious (or well-heeled) users, but the gimp has more than a useful feature or three, plus it's free to *X users. Particularly if you habitually work in XDarwin (or KDE, Gnome, etc...), the gimp makes a perfect tool. Install it today!


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