squashfs2 module built for Sharp/Cacko

[iamasmith]

Firstly heres a bit of eye candy...

3Gb (that's right Gb) of static Wikipedia data running through Apache ON THE Z from a 1Gb Microdrive... in a 550Mb squashfs !

Oh, BTW kudos to Maslovsky on this one, I only got to know about squashfs from his posting RE: New version of Cacko.. 1.22. Thanks Anton!

OK, firstly before the outraged observations the 3Gb report was from du -s -k on my reiserfs file system on my desktop. The below screenshot shows just over 2Gb in the squashfs... however, may I ask you now "Can you do that on your Windows CE/PocketPC/Windows Mobile.... whatever you are calling it this quarter ?"

[iamasmith]

Now here's the module, you need to uudecode it before installing and following install simply reboot or run depmod whilst logged in as root.

You can build the mksquashfs binary for your desktop easily from the source at http://squashfs.sourceforge.net

Officially the patches only go back as far as 2.4.20, however, a slight tweak after applying the patch to the Cacko kernel (Makefile in fs directory) allowed me to build using a Cacko kernel tree.

BTW: I have absolutely NO idea how big the EN version of the Wikipedia database would be with images since there are now around 70,000 images in the EN database and I suspect it would take the best part of the year to download them. The 3Gb mentioned in the first posting was a TEXT ONLY version of the dump built from the en 20041030_cur_table_sql.bz2 file taken from download.wikipedia.org

Also anyone interesting in doing this now can use the latest scripts for wiki2static.pl from http://www.tommasoconforti.com without modification and without the extra steps outlined in the wiki2zaurus project. As these scripts seem to be being maintained here it seems like a better bet for future Zaurus wiki use.

Have fun,

- Andy

[anonuk]

I ordered a 1Gb CF yesterday, now it looks like i'll fill it as soon as it arrives :-) . Do you think this can work under pdaXrom also?

[iamasmith]

Do you think this can work under pdaXrom also?

No, you would need to build the module for the Kathrin kernel which itself has had some heavy mods.

I haven't actually done a Kathrin kernel build so I would suggest asking one of the PDAXROM gurus for help on this one - as I say applying the patch is fairly straight forward. I used the one for 2.4.20 and then went through and corrected the Makefile.rej that I got in the fs directory of the kernel source.

BTW: Forgot to mention, squashfs is READ ONLY, so it's good for static apps but not for anything else... + better compression than cramfs + mkcramfs will give you a max file size around 1/8 of the size of your RAM +SWAP so on my machine that was about 280Mb, mksquashfs doesn't seem to limit you in this respect.

- Andy

[maslovsky]

BTW: Forgot to mention, squashfs is READ ONLY, so it's good for static apps but not for anything else... + better compression than cramfs + mkcramfs will give you a max file size around 1/8 of the size of your RAM +SWAP so on my machine that was about 280Mb, mksquashfs doesn't seem to limit you in this respect.

... plus squashfs fully supports GID and UID bits, which lets you stores files belonging to any user/group.

[iamasmith]

Good point Anton, forgot to mention that.

BTW: the mksquashfs also allows you to override current ownership with user specified UID and GID.. useful where your Apache server is running on different UID/GIDs on your target !

[iamasmith]

Actually one point to note on the use seems to be storage card related.

I'm currently waiting for a 2Gb SD card and my only storage card over 512Mb at the moment is an old 1Gb IBM Microdrive. I put my 550Mb image (the one carrying the Wikipedia data) on this card and have been occasionally popping the card in, mounting the squashfs, working with that and dismounting.

I have found, however, that with this card if you suspend for more than a few seconds, when you unsuspend the squashfs has a few problems and I think it's related to activity on the squashfs module while the card is 'resuming' following the suspend. Anyway to recover this condition I have found a reboot necessary.

I suspect that such problems also effect cramfs filesystems on cards like this and will report on the success (or lack of) when I get my 2Gb SD card.

- Andy

[Yasen]

I think the problem is due to that you are using mikro drive

[iamasmith]

I think the problem is due to that you are using mikro drive

Well I'm hoping so.

 I so want to have the Wikipedia content always available via my Apache server on my Cacko ROM with stacks of space free too - hence the order for the 2Gb SD card.

Man I can't wait to get hold of that card!

- Andy

[kopsis]

I've used a cramfs image (zgcc) extensively on a 512 MB SD on my C760 running Cacko 1.21a and haven't experienced a single problem with suspend. If the problem persists on your SD card then it may be specific to squashfs.

[maslovsky]

I believe the problem is related to ANY CF card, because they are reinitialized upon resume on Zaurus. SD cards are better in this respect.

[iamasmith]

I believe the problem is related to ANY CF card, because they are reinitialized upon resume on Zaurus. SD cards are better in this respect.

Thought that may be the case.... could make the SL-C3000 quite unpopular...

[Mickeyl]

I think this is just a kernel issue which could(*) be fixed.

*: theoretically, given enough motivation and/or a skilled (kernel) developer

[iamasmith]

Actually it does seem bullet proof when running from SD (a good SD).

Offroadgeek, should this go to the download section ?

[ShiroiKuma]

You can build the mksquashfs binary for your desktop easily from the source at http://squashfs.sourceforge.net

Has anyone compiled mksquashfs for the Z?