DSL v2.0 on a Dell Latitude XPI with 22 MB RAM

Forum: User Feedback
Topic: DSL v2.0 on a Dell Latitude XPI with 22 MB RAM
started by: killerhippy

Posted by killerhippy on Dec. 19 2005,14:45

How to enable the RAM/SWAP hack of DSL-v2.0?

I have a frugal install on a Dell Latitude XPI with 22 MB RAM and if I boot DSL only single user mode works good, X refuses to start if chosen because of low memory.

edit 2005-12-20:
Found out, that X does not start because of no fbdev available. I have to load fb16vga by hand, then I can use Xfbdev. Or I choose Xvesa, then X starts also. But because of small grafik memory X is unusable, see my other post at < http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....t=10356 >
Nevertheless I still wonder about the Mem/Swap hack...

When having read the Changelog of DSL-v2.0 I thought it automatically added SWAP to RAM, but it doesn't.

...or, when having misunderstood the feature of this hack, what does it do?

regards,
killerhippy

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 19 2005,17:12

Before it will do this, you need to have a configured swap partition.

create a LINUX SWAP partition with

cfdisk /dev/hda

where "hda" is your hard drive device name

In this example, a swap partition is created at partition number 3 (/dev/hda3).

Then format your partition with:

mkswap /dev/hda3

Finally, reboot and your swap partition will be detected and activated.

Posted by killerhippy on Dec. 20 2005,12:06

Thank you for your answer. I have used frugal install several times before, see my notepad:

Code Sample

handmade hd-install is quite easy, you don't even need the frugal-install.sh script, e.g. in my case in lack of a cdrom attached:

1. Create the partitions e.g. with the harddisk attached to another computer:
- hda1 swap
- hda2 60 (better 65) MB for the dsl-cd.iso contents ext2 formatted.
- hda3 another partition for mydsl (which is the persistant variable part of the frugal hd install) ext2 formatted.
- copy the iso contents (loop mounted) to the hda2 partition.

After having copied the iso contents (which is the KNOPPIX directory and the index.html file if you like) to the selected partition hda2 start with a dsl-floppy and boot from that hd. Mount /mnt/hda2 if nescessary, but it should be mounted at /cdrom.
From floppy copy boot/linux24 and boot/minirt24.gz to /mnt/hda2/boot/.
Now install your grub bootloader with "grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/hda2 /dev/hda". Adjust /mnt/hda2/grub/menu.lst if nescessary.
Ready made.

...the notepad is not public, is it?

The harddisk has the folling partitions:

/dev/hda1 500 MB swap
/dev/hda2 65 MB Linux
/dev/hda3 200 MB Linux

and frugal dsl is using swap as swap.
free shows this:

Code Sample

total used free
Mem: 21472 20564 908
Swap: 500936 108 500828
Total: 522408 20672 501736

which is no difference to a normal linux system using swap space.
I am still missing the hack to be visible somewhere ...

Does it need a kernel parameter or so? Or, still no answer to that question, what does the hack do in detail and how can I verify it is working?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 20 2005,14:11

Type df look at /ramdisk
The size shown for /ramdisk should be larger than your physical ram

Posted by killerhippy on Dec. 20 2005,14:16

Now I see!

So the RAM/Swap hack increases the mountpoint /ramdisk and not the RAM itself. This was my wrong assumption.

Thank you for your answer.

BTW: DSL is great. I really do love it. Thanx a lot to all developers and all people involved in this project.