Ubuntu swap partition - unresponsive system

I have been having problems with my Feisty for some time now. Since I started using it for work, I have found that even running just Firefox and Eclipse will sometimes cause my computer to lockup and hang.

I have hunted high and low until I noticed that … I have 0 swap memory! Indeed, I have created a swap partition but top and free now both report 0 swap memory.

Once the problem is found, a solution is always found in Google’s index. This bug report and this one too has helped me solve the problem (we’ll see).

Basically (taken verbatim from Nick,


Fiesty Swap/hibernate fix:

- Check swap: $ free | grep Swap

If you see the follow then your Swap file is broken:

Swap: 0 0 0

- Find the device name of swap: $ sudo fdisk -l

UUID support appears to be broken as far as the Swap is concerned.

- Edit fstab with correct non-UUID information: $ sudo gedit /etc/fstab

- Edit resume with correct non-UUID information: $ sudo gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume

Example: RESUME=/dev/sda6

- sudo update-initramfs -u

- Reboot

- Check swap if you want: $ free | grep Swap

- Open some apps

- Test hibernate
And now I can run Eclipse, Firefox, top, rake test all at once! Will have to try out the hibernate though.

update: This page here describes how to fix the problem of the laptop failing to resume after suspend, for fglrx users. Now my laptop is working as it should be!