swap read/write error

[Kai Franke]

All,

You might have experienced problems when compiling large projects and using a swap file located on the SD card. I recommend using a USB drive formatted as swap. This will not necessarily speed up the process but you will not get any read/write errors. Using a swap file on the SD card will only work for a limited amount of write cycles, after that you might end up with a corrupted file system.
You can check the status of your swap by typing

$ swapon -s 

if you have a swap-formatted USB drive inserted into /dev/sda, add it by

$ sudo swapon /dev/sda1

you should also remove the other mounted swap files. For the RasPi that would be

$ sudo swapoff /var/swap

Kai