Frugal CF installation
Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Frugal CF installation
started by: libretto
Posted by libretto on July 13 2005,08:26
Hello,I'm looking to put a Frugal install on a CF card inside a laptop using a 2.5" cf-ide adapter (the old hdd is quite noisy).
I have a few questions:
Does the speed of the compact flash (CF) card greatly affect how well DSL would run? i.e. is it worth the extra expense getting a type II 40x speed CF card?
Can I partition a CF like a HDD, before installing frugal (eg hda1,hda2)?
Is it alright to mix .dsl and .uci extensions? I'm looking to run cups and openoffice so that I can type reports, browse the web etc...
Comments welcome.
Posted by b1ackmai1er on July 13 2005,19:17
Yes you can format you CF card into partitions the same way as with HD'sUse the included cfdisk program and then setup a filesytem on each partition. Don't forget to set a partition as boot.
Thats how i setup my frugal install
regards b1m1
Posted by dslfool on July 13 2005,22:18
I've been running DSL 1.1 from an older (i.e., slower) 256MB CF card on a Toshiba Portege w/ 600MHz PIII and 320MB RAM. Frugal mode from the card didn't originally seem too slow for me, but then I set DSL to run in "toram" mode and now (after a minute or so to load) it flies.I load .DSLs, including OpenOffice, as I need them and don't load many at a time (e.g., not GIMP 2.2 and OO at the same time), nor do I run more than one OO component at a time, so my 320MB of RAM has been sufficient. Since I have only the CF card I don't have a swap file, however, so running out of RAM is a potential problem.
If you have the RAM, "toram" definitely offers a speed boost for slower hardware.
Posted by libretto on July 13 2005,22:44
Thanks for the info, after asking some people in the forums, I have settled on getting a Kingston 512MB TypeI CF card. The target laptop is an IBM 240 (celeron 300MHz) with 192MB ram. I will have to watch the RAM usuage.dslfool, you said you were running OO (or parts of), how do you keep the settings so that you dont have to resetup say oowriter everytime you load it?
Posted by libretto on July 13 2005,22:45
[EDIT] Whoops double post! aplogies Firefox was playing up! Copy of message removed[/EDIT]
Posted by dslfool on July 14 2005,04:03
Hi Libretto,There's probably more I should be doing, but I don't do anything more than not opening a spreadsheet or presentation, for example, when I have a word processing document open. I mostly use OO to open or create Word-compatible text documents, so this isn't much of an issue for me anyway.
Back when I had only 128MB of RAM on this notebook I had lots of problems (bad freezing) with latger applications such as OO and the GIMP. You may need to experiment and see how much you can load at once, but don't risk any important unsaved data and be ready to force reboots if your system runs out of RAM and freezes up.
Posted by ke4nt1 on Aug. 02 2005,03:19
I haven't found any solution to getting a CF to BOOT in an IBM 240 yet...but.. I have RUN the lappy from one.. Using an external floppy to boot the box.
Even with the latest firmware, the IBMer just doesn't want to accept
the fact that the LEXAR ATA FLASH is to be the hard drive..
but once booted, it runs peachy..
Strange, how even my old Toshiba P99 , which is MUCH older,
uses the CF-2-IDE with no issues.. Shame it only holds 40MB ram..
Same with my Dell, my other IBMers, and a KDS, even my desktops.
Only the lil' 240 gives me a problem with booting from it.
I even repartitioned the card to have 63 SPT, and 512 bytes per sector.
No dice..
73
ke4nt