I removed swap (/etc/fstab) from a machine a while ago, but the system was still activating the partition. Come to find out systemd.special/swap.target was still mounting it some how **OR** initramfs .. (still not entirely sure).

So if I remove the swap partition, it CAN'T activate it.. GREAT only except the machine now takes a really long time (~44 seconds) to boot when it was booting in about half that (~25 seconds) before that. WHAT THE HECK?!

I tried disabling the systemd (systemctl disable swap.target) which is a part of systemd.special (similar to busybox, but for systemd). Okay, recreate the swap partition. UUID is different and initramfs eventually FOUND a swap..

sudo update-initramfs -k all -u

It finds the new UUID of the swap partition and.... It still takes a REALLY long time (~44 seconds) to boot.

LET this be a lesson. Don't mess with linux and it's swap because it can hose your boot time! I still can't figure out what the heck is going on and why it's painfully slow to boot now.

So I remove the partition and update initramfs and no swap at boot.. Will have to live with long boot times for now.