DSL size


Forum: DSL Embedded
Topic: DSL size
started by: Borderpatrol

Posted by Borderpatrol on Sep. 07 2005,20:46
DSL has a size cap of 50MB, however, DSL Embeded does not. The size of the emebeded release keeps growing. I currently have a small USB key, 128 MB, and after formating I have 121 MB. DSL embeded uses 118 MB leaving me little room left over, will there be a cap on size for DSL embeded to say 100 MB or 110 MB?

Drew

Posted by roberts on Sep. 07 2005,22:24
I only do developement in DSL proper. DSL has a size limit of 50MB,
I think drop this into a directory of qemu and support files. I do this only as a courtesy for our users. I have no control on the size of Qemu. It is a separate and totally independent project. I suspect as newer releases of Qemu come out, they will be larger. They too keep adding features and capabilities. I know of no know size restrictions on Qemu.  You can always visit the Qemu developement site and try newer/older versions of Qmeu that might better fit your intended use.

Posted by friedgold on Sep. 07 2005,23:03
I thought the main reason that DSL embedded is so large is not the size of qemu (which seems to be about 2Mb), but the hard disk image /qemu/harddisk (which is about 60Mb). This hard disk image is pratically empty (the only thing it contains is a very small backup.tar.gz) and so could easily be reduced in size. Therefore I would have thought the best way to keep the size down is not limiting yourself to older qemus (since new version have a whole raft of improvements) but to instead reduce the size of the hard disk image.
Posted by roberts on Sep. 08 2005,04:59
The size of the virtual hard drive has not changed since I first added it for the convience of the user base. It primarily serves the purpose to hold a backup.tar.gz with Qemu virtual machine code specific settings. To do without would mean less basic functionality, i.e., sound, etc. The target pendrive  ( the one offer in the DSL store) was a 128 MB thereby allowing a 60MB virtual drive. Most users want to increase the size not decrease it. Like I said before we provide this setup as a convience. You may certainly visit the Qemu site and obtain more tools and make whatever size virtual hard drive you so desire. Don't look here for mutiple versions (sizes) of Qemu here. But to answer the question asked, the virtual hard is not growing with each release.
Posted by cbagger01 on Sep. 11 2005,04:46
If you want DSL embedded to be smaller, simply delete the hard disk file and remove the reference to it in the *.bat and *.sh text files.

Of course, you will lose the ability to backup your data and the soundcard will not be correctly detected, but short of creating your own custom hard disk image file, your options are limited.

Posted by friedgold on Sep. 11 2005,16:04
Eh? Who said anything about deleting the hard disk image. I only suggested that if embedded gets too large for a given USB key then the obvious way of dealing with this is by reducing the size of the hard disk image (not deleting it altogether).

If embedded gets 1Mb too large the size of the hard disk image could be reduced from 60Mb to 59Mb. Losing 1Mb of storage out of 60Mbs isn't going to make much difference to most users, especially as it starts out practically empty.

DSL embedded isn't too large for Borderpatrol's 128Mb key at the moment. But the original question was what could be done if it did get too large in future. I only offered a suggestion as to how this could be delt with.

Posted by cbagger01 on Sep. 12 2005,16:49
It may sound crude, but one quick way to solve the problem is to delete the image.

Then you suddenly have a ~50MB embedded system instead of a ~128MB system.

There are more sophisticated ways to save space, but this one is easy and can be performed by novice users without even booting into linux or formatting a new loop filesystem.

Perhaps a "make a new image file" script would be nice for someone who can boot into native DSL.

The script would create a new hard disk image file, format it, and then copy the backup.tar.gz file (or any other files) from the old image file into the new one.

Then rename the new image file and you are good to go.

Posted by Borderpatrol on Sep. 12 2005,23:16
Anyone have a way for me to make a harddisk file smaller say 25 MB. I dont use embedded all the time, so I dont need it to be terribly big, I simply use it at school where I cant reboot into DSL
Posted by friedgold on Sep. 13 2005,16:38
In Linux

Code Sample
# make new 25MB image
dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/new/image bs=1024k count=25
# Format image with ext2
mkfs.ext2 /path/to/new/image
# Mount old image
mount -o loop /path/to/old/image /old/image/mountpoint
# Mount new image
mount -o loop /path/to/new/image /new/image/mountpoint
# Copy files from old image to new image
cp -a /old/image/mountpoint/* /new/image/mountpoint
# Unmount
umount /old/image/mountpoint
umount /new/image/mountpoint


You could also do it in Windows by downloading qemu from the qemu homepage, using qemu-img to create a new image. Then to copy the files boot dsl embedded with both the old image as hdc and new image as hdd, format hdd with mkfs.ext and copy the files from hdc to hdd.

Posted by Borderpatrol on Sep. 14 2005,14:59
can you break that down a little simpler please. Im still learning this.
Posted by friedgold on Sep. 15 2005,01:50
Quote (Borderpatrol @ Sep. 14 2005,15:59)
can you break that down a little simpler please. Im still learning this.

I'm not sure which bit you want clarification on, doing it in windows or in linux. So I'll describe a way which should work on both.

1) We are going to use qemu-img to create a new hard disk image. To obtain this simply download the latest qemu from the < qemu homepage >. To create a 25MB image called newhd use the command

Code Sample
qemu-img create newhd.img 25M


More info on qemu-img < here >

2) Now you've got a 25MB image but it's got no data on it. To put some data on it we are going to use DSL running in qemu. In the file dsl-windows.bat which is included with DSL embedded where you see the command

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"


add the option -hdc /path/to/newhd.img (replacing path/to with the actual path to the file created in step 1). If you are doing this all in Linux then edit the dsl-linux.sh script instead.

3) Run qemu with dsl-windows.bat (or dsl-linux.sh if in Linux). DSL should boot up as normal. The old hard disk image can be accessed via /dev/hdb and the new hard disk image can be accessed via /dev/hdc. We need to format the new image so from a xterm/console inside qemu run

Code Sample
mkfs.ext2 /dev/hdc


Now we need to mount this drive to copy files to it so run

Code Sample
rebuildfstab
mount /dev/hdc


Now mount the old hard disk image and copy your files to the new one

Code Sample
mount /dev/hdb
cp -a /mnt/hdb/* /mnt/hdc


Now shutdown. The new image will now be formatted and your settings from the original hard drive image have been copied to it. Now go back and change dsl-windows.bat (or dsl-linux.sh) so the new image is used instead of the old one. i.e. remove the option -hdb qemu/harddisk and change the option -hdc path/to/newhd.img to -hdb /path/to/newhd.img

Posted by Borderpatrol on Sep. 15 2005,14:19
I had meant to say windows. When I get home from school I will try to do that.
Posted by SaidinUnleashed on Sep. 16 2005,00:43
Moved this to the DSL Embedded forum, cuz that's where it belongs.

-J.P.
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