[Blueprint server-karmic-swapfile-in-the-installer] Support Swapfiles at Installation

[Dustin Kirkland]

Blueprint changed by Dustin Kirkland:

Whiteboard changed to:

Discussion Points:
 * (At least) the 3rd UDS where this has been discussed...  What are the blockers?
  * time/resource to do it?
  * hibernation/resume?
 * Originally, I was thinking about offering swap files as an option, in addition to swap partitions;  does this make sense?  Would it be better to just default to swap files now, and allow for swap partitions in manual partitioning schemes?
 * What about GUI/command-line utilities for management of swap files?
  * a slider to dynamically adjust the size
  * a checkbox for encryption (see encrypted swap spec)
 * Server vs. Desktop installer -- should this be handled any different between the two?  (I think not)
-- Dustin Kirkland

One common item is a multiboot setup.  If this were implemented, and it
would do a mkswap for official swapfiles when activating them, I could
share large, contiguous files (e.g. windows PAGEFILE.SYS) among the
systems instead of having several large files, one for each OS.

If in the installer, there is a partition going to be mounted, allow the
user to select a file.  As a post-install, add a swapfile manager where
files can be selected, created, or removed.

scott - I'm not touching the installer ;)

-- 
  Support Swapfiles at Installation
  https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/server-karmic-swapfile-in-the-installer