OESF Portables Forum
Everything Else => Zaurus Distro Support and Discussion => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => Angstrom & OpenZaurus => Topic started by: samac on December 15, 2004, 06:53:56 am
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On trying to add the devel feed for oz 3.5.2 package manager told me that I did not have enough space left for my configuration file.
My setup is
SL5500
256mb SD card
64mb CF card
oz 3.5.2 48/16 image
According to system info I have
internal storage /dev/root 14464kb (200kb free)
internal memory 15863kb (15026kb free)
Internal memory 23144kb (23100kb free)
SD card 246732kb (192960kb free) formatted fat16 not ext2
CF card 62772kb (47534 free) formatted fat 16 not ext2
My problem is this.
Can I make the zaurus use the internal memory as part of the normal filesystem, as I appear to have 37.23mb of space that are not being used.
Moving part of the filesystem to the SD cat may not work because of the SD card being formatted with FAT16 (symlinks won't work) and please don't tell me to reformat the SD card as I tried this before and it became unreadable to everything apart from the zaurus.
I
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internal storage /dev/root 14464kb (200kb free)
root needs some free space for various transient items (jffs2 garbage collecting so I've read). You're getting very low.
Can I make the zaurus use the internal memory as part of the normal filesystem, as I appear to have 37.23mb of space that are not being used.
As you have a RAM-disk, you could always install stuff to it by selecting it from the drop-down list or by using 'ipkg -d ram <packagename>' from the command line.
Moving part of the filesystem to the SD cat may not work because of the SD card being formatted with FAT16 (symlinks won't work) and please don't tell me to reformat the SD card as I tried this before and it became unreadable to everything apart from the zaurus.
Don't move stuff, just install it to the SD card (it must be formatted as ext2 though).
Yes, it will become unreadable for Windows machines. Why do you need it to be readable?
Si
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As you have a RAM-disk, you could always install stuff to it by selecting it from the drop-down list or by using 'ipkg -d ram <packagename>' from the command line.
I install all software to SD, nothing extra has been installed to /root. The /dev/root entry is just filling up, yet there is a large section of memory (RAM-disk ?) not being used. This is the area that needs used, not to install programs but to be part of the general filesystem.
Don't move stuff, just install it to the SD card (it must be formatted as ext2 though).
Yes, it will become unreadable for Windows machines. Why do you need it to be readable?
As I said above all is installed to SD and no it does not have to be ext2.
Yes unreadable on Windows but also unreadable on my laptop (gentoo 2004.2) and server (slackware 10). Dodgy SD card not lack of knowledge.
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The /dev/root entry is just filling up, yet there is a large section of memory (RAM-disk ?) not being used.
Symlinks take up space, I suppose that may be it (+ conf files and the like)
With regard to the RAM-disk see my quote below:
As you have a RAM-disk, you could always install stuff to it by selecting it from the drop-down list or by using 'ipkg -d ram <packagename>' from the command line.
Regards,
Simon
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With regard to the RAM-disk see my quote below:
QUOTE
As you have a RAM-disk, you could always install stuff to it by selecting it from the drop-down list or by using 'ipkg -d ram <packagename>' from the command line.
I have no need to install packages to ram as I install them all to SD, what I require is a way to extend /dev/root with the spare ram, as the zaurus will not work correctly if /dev/root is full.
I would like to incorporate the spare memory space into the linux filesystem tree in some way to increase the amount of space available to the root (/) directory.
This should not be via the SD card as there is 37mb of space unused within the zaurus. Perhaps you could suggest where this space is currently mounted, then I could copy some folders to it and symlink to them.
Regards
Steven
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I have discovered that /dev/mtdblock6 is mounted as /mnt/ram
Is there anything stopping me copying the contents of /opt and /root to /mnt/ram/opt and /mnt/ram/root and then symlinking /opt and /root to their new positions.
This would extend the available space on the (/) filesystem, but would it break anything important.
Samac
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I have no need to install packages to ram as I install them all to SD, what I require is a way to extend /dev/root with the spare ram, as the zaurus will not work correctly if /dev/root is full.
I would like to incorporate the spare memory space into the linux filesystem tree in some way to increase the amount of space available to the root (/) directory.
Surely this is what mounting a seperate partition (/mnt/ram) is doing...? I do understand what you actually want to do, and there's a way (with desktop linux) to mount a fs on a mount point which already exists, but I wouldn't do this with a RAM-disk.
Is there anything stopping me copying the contents of /opt and /root to /mnt/ram/opt and /mnt/ram/root and then symlinking /opt and /root to their new positions.
If you have a power failure, you will lose all of your documents and won't be able to restart opie (in fact you will lose opie and all of the opie applications), so I wouldn't do this.
What I'd do instead is to remove some of the standard packages which came with the ROM, and which are installed to root, and install them elsewhere (either SD - my preference as I don't like RAM-disks - or to RAM).
Si
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I think that I have some confusion over your words ram-disk, to me a ram-disk is a temporary filesystem created in spare Random Access Memory. Whereas /mnt/ram appears to be user writeable rom memory (eeprom perhaps).
Is /dev/mtdblock6 the same type of memory as /dev/mtdblock4, because /dev/root is not lost on power failure.
If /dev/mtdblock6 is Random Access Memory, then all packages loaded with `ipkg -d ram ` would be lost on power failure.
With regard moving packages this would do, but please consider the /dev/mtdblock6 area of memory as my SD card is fat16 not ext2 and symlinks could be a problem.
Which packages would you suggest to move?
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/ only seems to get about 14Mb and if it had more it wouldn't get filled up by conf files and operating overhead. I think is question is simply, how do we get more? A different rom image?
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/ only seems to get about 14Mb and if it had more it wouldn't get filled up by conf files and operating overhead. I think is question is simply, how do we get more? A different rom image?
No, it doesn't work that way. Let me try to explain:
A Z5500 has exactly 16Mb of flash. It's a dedicted chip on the mainboard of your Z.
And since the flash is mounted as / on your Z, the size of / can not be bigger than
16Mb. Ever.
In addidtion to the 16Mb flash, the Z5500 ships with 64Mb of RAM. Some of this RAM may be
(ab)used as storeage area for your files (/mnt/ram). If you choose a kernel with a 32/32 split,
32Mb of RAM will be avalable as /mnt/ram, and 32Mb will be used as RAM to run programs.
The problem with /mnt/ram is that everything in it will be lost after a reset.
A stock OZ 3.5.2 Opie ROM (dunno for GPE) leaves you with ~2Mb of free space in /.
That's more than enough for symlinks and config files.
Just install all programs to your SD card and you will be fine.
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In addidtion to the 16Mb flash, the Z5500 ships with 64Mb of RAM. Some of this RAM may be
(ab)used as storeage area for your files (/mnt/ram). If you choose a kernel with a 32/32 split,
32Mb of RAM will be avalable as /mnt/ram, and 32Mb will be used as RAM to run programs.
The problem with /mnt/ram is that everything in it will be lost after a reset.
So the best option is to use a 64/0 image as any other image is basically useless, because 3.5.2 is not stable enough yet and you will have to reboot at some stage, and it would therefore better to use the full 64mb of memory to run programs rather than having a large chunk of useless memory.
A stock OZ 3.5.2 Opie ROM (dunno for GPE) leaves you with ~2Mb of free space in /.
That's more than enough for symlinks and config files.
Therefore the question should be what packages should be removed from the base package and installed as optional software, because ~2mb of spare memory is just not enough. On my machine it has been filled in under 2 weeks and that is without any documents being created, obviously not enough.
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Thanks for the hardware explanation Coredump, now it makes sense. I also agree that samac is right, I installed a few programs to /mnt/ram and my 2MB on root were used up. Perhaps because I've been doing this without an SD card, but in any case, 2MB is tight. Actually system info shows 1552kB on a fresh install of opie 3.5.2.
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Therefore the question should be what packages should be removed from the base package and installed as optional software, because ~2mb of spare memory is just not enough. On my machine it has been filled in under 2 weeks and that is without any documents being created, obviously not enough.
I don't know what you are doing w/ your Z but I never had any problems with even less space in /.
I've moved /root to the SD card. All programs are installed to SD, too.
I never managed to run out of space
(situations while I was experimenting excluded)
My current "cardfs" ROM has about 2Mb of free space in /.
After running ipkg-link, theres still over 1.5Mb free.
And believe me, I have a lot of apps on that SD card
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I don't know what you are doing w/ your Z but I never had any problems with even less space in /.
I've moved /root to the SD card. All programs are installed to SD, too.
Nothing unusual believe me, I have not however moved /root to SD that would probably be a good move.
I will try that after I have re-flashed with a 64/0 image and converted my SD card to ext2, even though I will loose some functionality with that card.
Many thanks for all the insight.
Samac
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Just as a quick follow up.
I reformatted the SD card to ext2, re-flashed with OZ 3.5.2 64/0, moved /root to /mnt/card/root and checked free space on /dev/root.
/dev/root free 1552kb
I installed timezones and opie-securityplugin-pin on to the SD card
/dev/root free 1196kb
356 kb less after installing two applications to SD.
As you can see nothing unusual but filling up mighty quick, and to add insult to injury opie-securityplugin-pin has decided not to work even after moving libmultiauthpinplugin.so to /opt/QtPalmtop/plugins/security/
So I ask again what would you move to /mnt/card to preserve the limited space on /dev/root
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got the security plugin working
/dev/root free 1168kb another 28kb gone with the pin password
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Samac - I've noticed that other ROM's have more space available and don't fill up as fast as the 3.5.2 ROM with a 64/0. I've been messing around with the 3.52 and see the same problem that you have. I wonder if movin /opt to the sd card will help or cause problems.
cya
bill
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I move /root to SD and started removing packages that I would never need from the base install.
At one point I broke multikey, but I reinstalled it to SD and all was good again.
Current free space on /dev/root 2556kb, much better, but it could be better still if some of the Z gurus would suggest the safest packages to move or the best way to move directories such as /opt.
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You're right. Knowing what to move is a shot in the dark if you don't have the indepth knowledge the OZ-Guru's have. I had to go back to thekompany ROM last night so I could recover some stuff I'd doumented in tkcmemo (which won't run on 3.5.2, even with oz-compt) and then reflashed with 3.5.2 and am slowing removing apps I don't need and watching the free space on /. It's not growing very fast. Even moving /home to the sd card and sym-linking to it does not help much. Do you know if you use a 32/32 or another ROM besides than 60/0 if there is a difference?
cya
bill
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I have tried 48/16 and 64/0 there is no difference to the speed that it fills up, but this thread has convinced me that that the 64/0 is better as anything installed on ram will be lost if you have to do a full reset.
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I have tried 48/16 and 64/0 there is no difference to the speed that it fills up, but this thread has convinced me that that the 64/0 is better as anything installed on ram will be lost if you have to do a full reset.
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As much as I hate to resurrect an old thread, this is the exact problem I am having. With a fresh install of 3.5.3, root doesn't have enough space to even upgrade the packages from the upgrade feed, which means libqte and libqpe errors all over the place. This before even inserting an SD or CF card so it can't be symlinks filling up the / filesystem. Has anyone else been able to run ipkg upgrade immediatly after flashing their Z???
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That's just a problem with not having much flashROM.
You could always ssh in, run 'opie stop', ipkg remove the packages which need upgrading, then ipkg install the new ones?
Si