Compcache worked for me. I disabled compcache, flashed the new test kernel, rebooted, enabled compcache, then rebooted then typed "free" in terminal and it showed my swap. For me it didn't work until after the reboot. Also I tried typing "compcache start" before the reboot and it just gave me some error (I think it was the same as the one you wrote but I'm not sure). So you get that error in terminal emulator I take it? Did you type "compcache start" or what did you do before the error showed up?
The files for compcache do not exist on my phone. I've flashed and reflashed deprimed a few times while having compcache disabled and such. No joy.
Do you have plenty of free space in /system before flashing? If it is too full the necessary files may not get copied.
Same problem here as maverick. Root explorer shows /system has 8MB free. I do have zram.ko in /system/lib/modules and it's the same size as what's in the kernel zip file.
In terminal, "compcache start" gives a modprobe error. "modprobe: chdir(2.6.32.9): No such file or directory" Is this a BusyBox problem?