Nothing says a page has to be loaded in one DMA.    The swap file isn't
allocated any different than any other file on the LINUX systems.    About
the only thing you have to do is make
sure that all the blocks are populated.    UNIX normally allocates the files
as sparse and the swap code doesn't want to have to worry about allocating
blocks when it comes to paging out.

-----Original Message-----
From: TUHS [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Dave Horsfall
Sent: Monday, December 4, 2017 5:07 PM
To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society
Subject: Re: [TUHS] signals and blocked in I/O

On Mon, 4 Dec 2017, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:

> Most modern systems let you use a regular old file in the filesystem
> for swap space, instead of having to repartition your disk and using a
> dedicated partition. I'd be suprised if your *BSD box didn't let you
> do that too.  It's a little slower, but a gazillion times more convenient.

Doesn't it have to be a contiguous file (for DMA), or is scatter/gather now
supported?

--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will
suffer."