free rom space on sl 5500 with openzaurus 5500 ??

[dansawyer]

All,

What is the free space remaining on ROM after an install of openzaurus 3.2??

On my system there are only about 2.2 mb remaining. This seems small. Is it normal?

Are there options? Is there a configuraiton howto??

Dan

[Izydorr]

This is space that wasn\'t available for You when using Sharp ROM. This is where the system is being held. It\'s just a little bonus to RAM space. You can use it normally and istall software there.

[zenyatta]

Just a little clarification.

The 5500 has 16MB of FlashROM memory. The original Sharp ROM treats it as actual ROM, it is strictly read-only. OZ treats it as regular read-write memory and manages to squeeze itself into less than 14MB, making the two or so MB available for your files. Use this space for absolutely vital data - the FlashROM will keep it even if your Z goes without juice for months.

In addition to that, you still have the 64MB of RAM which the original Sharp ROM splits as 32MB main memory / 32MB filesystem. With OZ, you can choose the proportion between main memory and filesystem, depending on which kernel you download.

FlashROM is mounted at /, the filesystem portion of RAM is mounted at /mnt/ram. This means that when you have files in any directory under /mnt/ram, they are stored in RAM, otherwise they are stored in FlashROM (you can see the mount points by opening up Konsole and entering \"df -h\"). In the Settings ] System Info ] Storage screen, FlashROM is called \"Internal Storage\" and the RAM filesystem is called \"Internal Memory\".

z.

PS. just out of curiousity, does anyone have an idea what it would take to make the main memory / filesystem split dynamically adjustable? I think it could come in handy sometimes...

[lardman]

PS. just out of curiousity, does anyone have an idea what it would take to make the main memory / filesystem split dynamically adjustable? I think it could come in handy sometimes...

Shuffling the physical addresses around when you change the memory size shouldn\'t cause too many problems as I\'d assume this kind of thing happens anyway while the kernel is running. What might cause a problem is whether changing the total size dynamically rather than having it DEFINEd (is it, I\'ve no idea?) at compile time will introduce problems into the rest of the kernel - lots of changes, etc.

In the short term, if you really want something like this then rather than modifying the kernel you might think about creating a variable sized swap file in the disk part of the memory. That said, it isn\'t quite such a nice solution I agree. The Psion 5 could dynamically change it\'s storage vs. \'RAM memory\' ratio almost over the entire range of its available memory which is quite cool. I don\'t know how though.


Si

[jchung]

It probably would be less headache to just have a swap file in the RAM area..

[dansawyer]

The reason for the question was I ran out of memory trying to install a package. Where do packages go? I assmume the ROM.

Dan

[jchung]

where are you installing the packages to? / or /mnt/ram

[dansawyer]

I don\'t know.

I just did a ipkg install *.pkg
 
df shows / is now at 82% use and /mnt/ram is at 1% use. What goes in ram anyway??  I am using a 40/24 split.

Is /mnt/ram saved across a reboot (I don\'t think so)

Is it saved across a battery exchange (I think so)

With the exception of power loss can we think of the 16mb of ROM and the 24 mb /mnt/ram as exchangeable??

Dan

[zenyatta]

Dan,

you need to install packages to a different destination. If you use plain \"ipkg install\" it all goes to /, i.e. the FlashROM. You want to install packages to /mnt/ram (the RAM filesystem), /mnt/card (your SD card) or /mnt/cf (your CF card). The way to do this is

ipkg -d <destination> install whatever.ipk

where <destination> is one of the destinations specified in /etc/ipkg.conf. By default these are root, ram, sd and cf.

Alternatively, you can use the GUI installer (Settings > Packages). When installing, there\'s a Destination list box where you can choose among available destinations.

There is one gotcha: if you try to install, say, to /mnt/cf when the CF card is not mounted, the packages will still end up in the FlashROM. But usually the .ipk itself is on a card so that shouldn\'t be a problem :wink:

Regarding the memory/filesystem ratio: had I known there\'d be so many responses I would\'ve started a new thread. The swapfile idea is quite obvious and elegant, I think. Shame I hadn\'t thought of it myself. Now if I could only find an applet with a slider that would adjust the swap file size in real-time  :twisted:

z.

[lardman]

@zenyatta:
There\'s an applet which uses opie-sh to turn it on and off (on killefiz), I\'d have thought that modifying this would be pretty easy. Actually, you could almost automate the process and have a script/daemon running at all times to check how much free memory/space you have and adjust as required, possibly after warning you (the wonders of opie-sh).

@dansawyer:

df shows / is now at 82% use and /mnt/ram is at 1% use. What goes in ram anyway?? I am using a 40/24 split.

This RAM is the same as the normal memory which you\'d be using with one of the Sharp ROMs. Personally I use the 64-0 (i.e. no storage) split and store any non-essential apps on an MMC card. Anything which I really need - libs, system utils, etc. - (and which is small enough) I stick in the flashROM.

Si

[zenyatta]

@lardman:
For me the issue is strictly academic. I enjoy 512MB of CF sweetness so I run at 64-0 too... I doubt I will have an incentive to look at it more closely.

@dansawyer:
I just read your last post carefully, seems I hadn\'t answered your questions at all, had I? You assumptions are largely right but I\'m not sure whether /mnt/ram gets lost in a reboot. I believe as long as you don\'t do hard reboot (sticking a pin into the little hole in the middle of the back cover) it stays fine. It can perish if your Z runs out of energy or if you leave the battery out for too long. FlashROM stays OK with no energy.
As for why your /mnt/ram is full you\'ll just have to use Konsole or the file manager. A useful Konsole command is \"du -h -s /some/directory\" which tells you how much space /some/directory takes up.

z.