der Mouse writes:
> > It seems that at one time the system would set up swap when you
> > booted based on the information in the disk label.
> 
> Has it ever actually done this?  I think it actually swapped on the
> device configured in the kernel config.  (Maybe it checked that the
> partition in question was labeled as swap.)

der Mouse has it right -- we automatically swapped until recently on
the "primary swap device" compiled into the kernel, sanity checked
with the disk label. We no longer have such a thing, though -- you
have to use swapctl(8) now at boot time.

Perry