Possible to start DSL embedded in Text only mode?

Forum: DSL Embedded
Topic: Possible to start DSL embedded in Text only mode?
started by: tmtim

Posted by tmtim on Feb. 18 2005,17:21

Is there a file i can edit to force DSL embedded to start up in text mode, instead of going to X on startup? I really have no need for the windowing environment, but when i exit it and try to use just the plain console mode Qemu seems to become unresponsive.

Thanks

Posted by marker on Feb. 28 2005,17:27

edit dsl-windows.bat (or dsl-linux.sh) depending on where ur running from.

edit this line:

Code Sample

START qemu\qemu.exe -L qemu/ -enable-audio -localtime -kernel linux24 -initrd minirt24.gz -hda KNOPPIX/knoppix -hdb qemu/harddisk -append "qemu sb=0x220,5,1,1 frugal quiet"

to this:

Code Sample

START qemu\qemu.exe -L qemu/ -enable-audio -localtime -kernel linux24 -initrd minirt24.gz -hda KNOPPIX/knoppix -hdb qemu/harddisk -append "qemu sb=0x220,5,1,1 frugal quiet 2"

which will boot into runlevel 2 with no x.

Posted by itismike on Mar. 25 2005,16:27

This is where I'd add boot options, too, right?

I want to add 'dsl toram'. Where do I insert it?

thx,
Mike

Posted by itismike on April 02 2005,15:18

bump

Am I misunderstanding this? On a machine with adequate memory, wouldn't this be a good idea?

Posted by tronik on April 02 2005,15:53

Correct.

Posted by itismike on April 02 2005,16:12

Quote (tronik @ April 02 2005,10:53)

Correct.

Thanks for the reply Tronic, but maybe you could add some content to it? ;-)

Posted by mikshaw on April 02 2005,18:04

If you have an adequate amount of ram, running toram loads the whole system into ram. This speeds things up nicely...as long as you have enough ram to store everything + run your applications.

just add "toram" to the append string. You don't always need the "dsl" part...that's just a way to make sure the options entered are separated by a space on both ends.

Posted by itismike on April 02 2005,18:15

Thanks mikshaw,
so the new command is:

Code Sample

START qemu\qemu.exe -L qemu/ -enable-audio -localtime -kernel linux24 -initrd minirt24.gz -hda KNOPPIX/knoppix -hdb qemu/harddisk -append "qemu sb=0x220,5,1,1 frugal quiet toram"

I'll modify my "dsl-windows.bat" file to read that.

Posted by cbagger01 on April 02 2005,18:43

You also can control the amount of RAM inside your virtual PC. Keep in mind that you should always try and keep it less than the amount on RAM in your Real PC or you will start swapping like crazy to the hard drive.

qemu.exe -m 256

for 256MB of RAM

Posted by itismike on April 03 2005,01:26

So I tried adding toram and -m 512, but I still can't get it to load into ram. I've got enough memory. The startup messages are:

Code Sample

Accessing DSL image at /dev/hda...
du: /cdrom/KNOPPIX: No such file or directory
Copying DSL image to ramdisk...Please be patient.
/bin/cp: cannot stat '/cdrom/KNOPPIX': No such file or directory
Copying DSL image failed. ramdisk possibly has not enough space left.
Total memory found: 515188 kB
Creating /ramdisk (dynamic size=405780k) on shared memory...Done.
Creating directories and symlinks on ramdisk...Done.
Starting init process.
INIT: version 2.78-knoppix booting
Running Linux Kernel 2.4.26.
Processor 0 is Pentium Pro 2154MHz, 128 KB Cache
Autoconfiguring devices... / - \ | / - \ | / - .....

Has anyone got DSL embedded to run with toram? Is there a reason that it wasn't configured with that option in the first place? Does qemu already optimize memory usage? I notice in my Windows task manager that qemu uses 45MB to 92MB while starting, but I expected it to allocate all 512MB as in the startup script. Am I making a bunch of noise for no reason? It just seems like it could run faster if DSL was loaded into RAM.

Posted by mikshaw on April 03 2005,03:52

is the DSL image actually located on hda? Apparently it's not being found.

Posted by itismike on April 03 2005,04:24

ok, taking out the "-m 512" to reduce the number of variables here, I went from this:

Code Sample

START qemu\qemu.exe -L qemu/ -enable-audio -localtime -kernel linux24 -initrd minirt24.gz -hda KNOPPIX/knoppix -hdb qemu/harddisk -append "qemu sb=0x220,5,1,1 frugal quiet"

to this:

Code Sample

START qemu\qemu.exe -L qemu/ -enable-audio -localtime -kernel linux24 -initrd minirt24.gz -hda KNOPPIX/knoppix -hdb qemu/harddisk -append "toram qemu sb=0x220,5,1,1 frugal quiet"

Each time the program runs normally, but it is significantly slower than running from my pendrive with the toram option. I'm just trying to get the most out of it.

Thanks for any ideas,
Mike