uci2ram
Forum: DSL Ideas and Suggestions
Topic: uci2ram
started by: cbagger01
Posted by cbagger01 on April 07 2005,16:51
Here's the dilemma:I like to have a mydsl.iso that contains some uci files like opera.uci
These extensions are great because they take up very little memory when used on a low RAM system but they can't be automatically used on a high RAM system when booted into "toram" mode and the CD-R disk is then removed from the tray.
However, this can be solved by using opera.tar.gz because you can automatically load a *.tar.gz extension at boot time for those situations where you are using a newer computer and want to use the "toram" feature in DSL.
But it seems silly for me to keep two extensions of the same program for my use, one for low RAM and another for toram.
So I considered two possible solutions for this problem and allow the user to only need to keep one extension file for their use:
1) Modify the bootup process so that when "uci2ram" or similar parameter is specified, the script will copy the *.uci extensions over to either /tmp/uci/ or to /opt/uci (both locations are part of the RAMdisk) first and then do a uci mount on these copies.
2) An alternative approach would be if "uci2ram" is chosen, to figure out the uci total size and then create an additional ramdisk to hold the compressed isos and then mount them directly like the compressed KNOPPIX image in the "toram" copyover process. This approach seems overly complicated to me but it would work.
I'm sure that there are other ways to also accomplish this but the important concept that I am trying to explain is:
It should be possible to allow the user to choose an autoload command for the uci files to be transferred at boot time from the livecd over to RAM and then mount so the best of both worlds ( toram + uci ) can be used at the same time and also still be able to remove the livecd from the tray. Of course when using this command, the user must be smart enough to prevent the overloading of RAM on his computer but he/she already needs to worry about this when choosing his/her *.dsl and *.tar.gz collection so it is already a familiar burden.
In the meantime, an interim solution is to boot in "toram" mode and then manually mount the cd disk, copy over the /cdrom/*.uci files to /tmp and then myDSL load them from there and then unmount the cd disk.
Posted by cbagger01 on April 08 2005,16:33
FYI,Mounting a *.uci file that is stored in the RAMdisk is usually still more efficient than loading the *.tar.gz or *.dsl equivalent files into memory.
Why?
Because the *.uci file remains in a compressed state while the *.dsl or *.tar.gz file must be ungzipped and untarred into memory before it can be used.
There is a small amount of extra resource usage due to the overhead involved with use of an additional cloop device but this usually pales in comparison to the extra RAM usage from a *.tar.gz equivalent extension.
For example, the open office tar.gz extension requires 384MB of RAM but my guess is that you could load the open office uci extension into the ramdisk and mount it and suceeed with 256MB of RAM and have more free RAM left over for application and system use.
Posted by roberts on April 08 2005,17:22
Your request is duly noted. Here was my original thinking when I decided to set it up the way it is. Using uci usually implies low ram system, therefore if the user is specifying toram then even less ram therefore do not try to load uci into ram. But since the improvements to uci, I am willing to do most anything to promote the use of uci over the other extension types. Also, since I have pretty much wrapped up 1.0. I will add your request to list of things to ponder. 
Posted by aesenadorjr on April 08 2005,23:43
I support cbagger01's proposal. In fact, I have been doing what he just suggested for two months now. I have converted all the .tar.gz extensions that I use to uci format after finding how easy it is to do. They are all placed either in the vfat harddisk partition or in the ramdisk, depending on the available memory of the computer I am using. I have to manually load them by doing "mydsl-load /mnt/hda1/file.uci". Since the number of cloop devices are limited, I would sometimes combine two or more extensions that I often use at the same time into one uci (recompiling them if needed).
Posted by yyyc514 on Sep. 02 2005,16:03
| Quote (roberts @ April 08 2005,13:22) |
| I am willing to do most anything to promote the use of uci over the other extension types. |
How about allowing packages to run a post-install script... this would allow even the most difficult DSL to be automatically ported to UCI because they could be extract into /opt and think linked up properly with the rest of the ramdisk without recompiling to especialy support /opt.
I realize this doesnt' have the benefit of preventing mkwritable, but it still does have the benefit of mounting, the decreased memory usage, and a simple upgrade path for all DSLs...