Size of partitions
Forum: DSL Embedded
Topic: Size of partitions
started by: cdlaforc
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 25 2006,19:36
Hello,I have recently installed DSL and am trying to download and load up some extensions and am having some problems. The problem is that I'm running out of disk space.
It's funny because I have a 1gb usb memory key, but DSL doesn't seem to be utilizing it. For example the directory that is filling up /home is only alloted 93.4 mb. Can this be changed??
Thanks,
Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 26 2006,03:28
/home is allocated on the ramdisk (which is based upon your physical ram + swap size) by default.Try to use the extensions other than .dsl's, esp. uci (and unc if you're using unionfs) for less resource consumption.
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 27 2006,14:02
^thatstherule^,Thanks for the reply. The .dsl that I'm trying to use right now is gcc1.dsl and everytime it tries to load my whole dsl system locks up. I put a remount line I found in my /opt/bootlocal.sh script to enlarge /home/dsl to 512M, but this didn't help. Is my swap space filling up? I have just gotten it to load, but now I'm trying to run simple shell commands and everything is locking up and the desktop looks all screwed up. Any suggestions.
Thanks,
Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 27 2006,14:19
You could use free -m to check your memory status.I'd suggest to either: get more ram, or increase your swap. Enlarging /home/dsl (by remounting it to wherever) does not help since that dsl is not installed to there...
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 27 2006,15:05
^thatstherule^,I believe I have 512M of ram in the pc I'm using. I was just trying to get gcc running to try to install Cisco Vpn Client for work. How would I go about increasing my swap size?
Thanks again,
Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 27 2006,20:35
512 should be sufficient, unless you have already loaded that all up...Could you paste the output of your `free -m`?
(increasing your swap depends on how you first set it up, if you had one previously)
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 28 2006,15:15
Here's the output of the free command. I tried free -m but receivied a usage error:dsl@box:~$ free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 126736 61580 65156 0 2104
Swap: 0 0 0
Total: 126736 61580 65156
To me it doesn't even look like I have any swap. Let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Chris.
Posted by Zucca on Sep. 28 2006,15:22
It seems that you have only 128MB of RAM and no swap activated.First you might try to activate swap by swapon -a.
Second way is to format your HD. I suggest you to do so and crate there a swap partition with size of 256-512MB.
EDIT: D0h. Fixed 'sapon' to 'swapon'
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,15:25
You could either do that, or use a swapfile (i.e. win9x style.)
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 28 2006,15:51
Thanks for the replies. Is there a way to create a parition now with messing up what I have already done. Why is my swap partition missing? Did I miss a step? This is running of a usb memory key so all I thought I had to do was format the key vfat and copy the files onto it? Let me know what you think and thanks again for the help.Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,17:26
Ah, that would explain it - the usb flash. Having a swap partition on your usb flash drive would greatly reduce its life afaik...No hard drive attached to that computer?
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 28 2006,17:45
Yes it does have a hard drive in it running Fedora Core 4. I think it's a 40 giger. Chris.
Posted by Zucca on Sep. 28 2006,18:17
Can you do this:| Code Sample |
| swapon -a && free |
I think that the Fedora installion has a swap space that you can also use for DSL.
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 28 2006,19:22
This is what happens in DSL:dsl@box:~$ swapon -a && free
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 126736 81648 45088 0 2116
Swap: 0 0 0
Total: 126736 81648 45088
dsl@box:~$
Thanks,
Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 28 2006,20:10
Actually, DSL upon boot will automatically use any swap partitions it can find.If you have some free space, etc. you could make a swapfile or swap partition on your hard drive. You could check the hdd's partition table to see what's there.
Posted by cdlaforc on Sep. 29 2006,00:00
So is this something I would have to do at any pc I went to or just to get gcc installed do you think. I really haven't had problems until now.Question is DSL supposted to find and use the swap of the Os it's running on top of or does the memory key install just not use swap? Could I some how increase the amount of memory it uses so it doesn't go to swap so fast?
Thanks,
Chris.
Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Sep. 29 2006,02:12
Yea, the gcc extensions are packed with quite a bit.DSL can automatically use the swap partitions on the hard drive, but I haven't done usb-installs before. If you do have one that's not being used, just use the swapon device command.
Why would you want to increase the amount of memory something uses? (I'd rather do the opposite)
Posted by Zucca on Oct. 02 2006,15:18
Ahem. If you want some program to use more ram, the more likely your system will use swap...
Posted by cdlaforc on Oct. 02 2006,16:34
I didn't want the gcc install to use more ram, I was wondering if the DSL install could be allocated more ram there in going to swap less frequently. I'll Fool around with the swapon command and see if I can get this to work.
Thanks,
Chris.