Can't create a swap file

Question

I've just formatted my laptop with Windows 7 and Ubuntu. I've a 250gb drive and I've split it in 3 partitions:One for Windows 7, one for Ubuntu and a shared partition for both windows and Ubuntu. I've format the drive correctly and I've installed the 2 operating systems. Using gParted there are 4 partitions 3 NTFS (Windows 7, a small partition for Windows and the shared one) and an ext4 partition for Ubuntu . I can't create a swap file . I follow this tutorial

I can't figure out what to do. I tried the fallocate comand and nothing happens .

terminal shows these:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/mnt/512MiB.swap bs=1024 count=524288
524288+0 records in
524288+0 records out
536870912 bytes (537 MB) copied, 1.34189 s, 400 MB/s
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo chmod 600 /mnt/512MiB.swap
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkswap /mnt/512MiB.swap
Setting up swapspace version 1, size = 524284 KiB
no label, UUID=fc09b869-8a61-4dde-8e42-ba00397e2abb

What i'm doing wrong? and how much space should i have to give? I have 2gb ram

thanks in advice and happy new year!!

Answer 1

You have succeeded in creating a swap file. You didn't finish the tutorial and activate the swap file though. Finish following the tutorial by running swapon and editing /etc/fstab.

Answer 2

I belive is a limitation on the number of partitions your filesystem can handle. primary partitions are limited to 4 partitions, I recently had a similar problem with a friend notebook and took me sometime to figure it out. you have 2 choices, change the partitions scheme and add the swap partition as logical by creating space through resizing the common between win/ubuntu or if you have ample ram i.e >4gb giveup on using a swap file.