OESF Portables Forum

Everything Else => Sharp Zaurus => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => 5x00 General discussions => Topic started by: Jinidog on May 26, 2005, 06:36:57 am

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: Jinidog on May 26, 2005, 06:36:57 am

Hello,

I own a SL-5600 and want to have swap.
(I have gentoo installed and it needs swap for compiling)
At the moment I'm using a swapfile mounted over NFS, a relly slow solution and no solution when the PDA isn't docked.
So, I thought I might use the internal flash.
I have my system installed on a SD-card, which I boot with the help of the rbooot-script.
I might need the stuff on mtdblock2 as a rescue system, but mtdblock3 isn't needed for it.
So I can make a swappartition out of it and use it.

BUT:
Flash memory is known to have a limited lifetime, a limited count of write cycles to be exact. (that's why I don't want a swapfile on the SD-card)
Is it the same with the internal flash of the poodle?
Using it as swap would kill it very soon, I fear.

Do you know other possibilitys?

Thanks for your thoughts.

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: craigtyson on May 26, 2005, 06:56:14 am

Iv been using tkc v1 with a 8MB swap on my 5500 RAM for 1 1/5 years with no problems.

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: Jinidog on May 26, 2005, 07:05:40 am

As far as I know the 5500 only has RAM. It has no internal flash.
But that is not true for the 5600.

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: koen on May 26, 2005, 07:17:58 am

Quote

As far as I know the 5500 only has RAM. It has no internal flash.
But that is not true for the 5600.
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the 5500 (and 5000) has 14mb off internal flash. It's easy to check: remove the battery for a few hours and see if everything is still there.
Internal flash is flash too (duh....), so swapping on it isn't the way to go. I use an SD card for swap on my c700 and that works pretty well, especially with kernel 2.6.

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: Jinidog on May 26, 2005, 07:27:25 am

But the SD-card is flash, too. So you are cutting down it's lifetime?

Title: Using Internal Flash As Swap?
Post by: Mag1c on May 26, 2005, 07:32:10 am

Quote

But the SD-card is flash, too. So you are cutting down it's lifetime?
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Right, but you can replace the SD by a newer one. What will you do if internal flash ist broken ... ?

Greets
Mag1c