Impressive Results

Forum: Apps
Topic: Impressive Results
started by: clivesay

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 09 2006,20:39

Finally have had a little time to play with DSL. I didn't have the latest version but did have a cd of 3.0.1. Been following the unionfs additions to DSL but have been surprised that their use doesn't seem to have ignited the community like the development of .dsl and .uci files. I'm new to the .unc extensions so I thought I would see what they do according to Conky.

1. Boot DSL 3.0.1 with 'dsl unionfs' boot option - Conky says, 22mb ram used
2. Install and run gtk2.unc and install abiwordgtk2.unc - Conky says, 28mb ram used
3. Run Abiwordgtk2.unc - Conky says 32.4mb ram used!!!

Running DSL from cd you can run gtk2 AND have abiword doc up on your desktop just using 10mb ram?!!

This is very impressive. WDef's dsl2unc script runs flawlessly. I would definitely recommend all extensions be uci's and unc's. I was amazed at my test results. Great job RS!!

Posted by roberts on Dec. 10 2006,00:58

Chris, Thanks for the feedback and statistics.

Personally, I use many unc type extensions. The XFree86.unc has allowed me to bring new life to an old Japanese version of a Sony Picturebook which has a Transmeta processor, odd 1024x480 screen and only 112MB memory. DSL runs great on this tiny marvel. Even the sounds works.

As for credit, thanks too, but also thanks to Clacker & JB4x4 for their early contributions, feedback, and testing of the unc type extension.

Posted by meo on Dec. 10 2006,15:37

Hi clivesay!

Yes we do use unc files and we want more of them. I used unc files in my last remaster and it works beautifully. The only thing that has to be done is to load them and make the remaster. No more tar -zxvf to open files inside the source to the remaster. It's just so beautiful.

Have fun,
meo

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 10 2006,22:05

... with the exception of user.tar.gz

but also using .unc's really help those who do not wish to remaster - since before that was the only way to get away from the high-ram usage of the other extensions (.dsl+.tar.gz)

Posted by Juanito on Dec. 11 2006,05:09

After reading this I was prompted to start using unc packages on my USB boot system.

As a test, I replaced XFree86.dsl with XFree86.unc in the boot directory and everything appeared to work fine - as an aside, it would be better if both the dsl/unc packages put the example XF86Config-4 files somewhere other than /home/dsl.

However, when I tried to install a couple of dsl packages - gnu-utils, gcc1-with-libs & gcc-2.95, I found that I could only load one of them before the desktop became blocked. By blocked, I mean that none of the icons or right-click menus work except for windowmanager/exit and most of the terminal commands (eg exitcheck.sh shutdown) do nothing.

I presume it should be OK to use both unc and dsl packages together?

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 11 2006,05:56

Yes, as long as the files don't overlap.

For example, when you use XFree86.dsl, you can remove /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86
but if you will encounter problems (I think after loading other .dsl's which makes /usr writeable) using XFree86.unc and then trying to remove that.

Previously anything on /ramdisk was pretty much was editable - but this is what I found out so far.

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 11 2006,12:24

Juanito,

How about using WDef's dsl2unc script to convert those files and see what happens? With the conversion script, I'm not sure there's any need to run a mixture of dsl and unc.

Chris

Posted by roberts on Dec. 11 2006,16:54

Not intended to run both.

Posted by Juanito on Dec. 12 2006,18:45

As a test, I tried a couple of things:

1. I downloaded gnu-utils.unc and this seems to work fine along with XFree86.unc - however, I still have the same problems if I try to load a dsl package after that.

2. I tried out the dsl2unc script on a simple dsl package but it only partially worked. Its seems to have a problem with anything in /usr/:

# /opt/dsl2unc /mnt/sda1/optional/acpid.dsl

Making acpid.unc from acpid.dsl ..

./
usr
usr/sbin/
tar: usr/sbin: Cannot mkdir: Not a directory
usr/sbin/acpid
tar: usr/sbin/acpid: Cannot open: Not a directory
etc/
etc/init.d/
etc/init.d/acpid
etc/acpi/
etc/acpi/events/
etc/acpi/events/powerbtn
etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh
tar: Error exit delayed from previous errors
Total translation table size: 0
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 1348
Total directory bytes: 8192
Path table size(bytes): 62
[ 9] Block# 0 size 65536 -> 1734 [compression ratio 2%, overall: 2%]
...
Finished. Now test your new acpid.unc! [doesn't work]

Just in case my DSL installation is somehow "broken" I tried this out with DSL-N with the same results. Any ideas?

Edit
----
Since the acpid daemon is essentially two files:

/usr/sbin/acpid
/etc/init.d/acpid

I copied these two files to /temp/acpid and then tried:

# mkisofs -R -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -pad /temp/acpid/ | create_compressed_fs - 65536 > acpid.unc

When I load the resulting acpid.unc, it appears to work.

Posted by ke4nt1 on Dec. 12 2006,20:22

I couldn't find a acpid.dsl in the repository,
so I'm guessing here a bit about the contents of your .dsl ...

:If I understand the creation of .dsl's correctly:

These lines I have marked with a *
should not exist in your .dsl extension.

*./
*usr
*usr/sbin/
*tar: usr/sbin: Cannot mkdir: Not a directory
usr/sbin/acpid
*tar: usr/sbin/acpid: Cannot open: Not a directory
*etc/
*etc/init.d/
etc/init.d/acpid
*etc/acpi/
*etc/acpi/events/
etc/acpi/events/powerbtn
etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh

It should look like this when you output the unpacking of
the .dsl to a list. ( tar -ztf acpid.dsl > filelist.txt )

usr/bin/acpid
etc/init.d/acpid
etc/acpi/events/powerbtn
etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh

If it doesn't, edit your list to only include these files,
and not directories.
(rare exception, an absent AND empty AND required directory.)

Then remake your .dsl using your new filelist.txt as your guide.
"tar -T filelist.lst --no-recursion -cvf- | gzip > acpid.dsl"

Then, see if your newly rebuilt extension passes
the test, and works with the dsl2unc script.

73
ke4nt

Posted by Juanito on Dec. 13 2006,17:44

You're right, removing the directory listings without files fixes the problem - since "dpkg -L" outputs a list containing these it never occurred to me that they were not required.

A quick test of gcc1-with-libs.dsl (i.e. something not made by me) reveals that it seems to have the same problem

Thanks for the help

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 13 2006,17:47

Yes, as ke4nt1 points out, there is a 'right' way to build a dsl file. You never want to have an empty dir in the dsl file unless the application needs it for some reason. Sometimes you get lucky and it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Chris

Posted by roberts on Dec. 14 2006,00:56

Thanks ke4nt1! As many may know ke4nt1 has contributed many extensions and has helped many users with the fine points of their creation. When I first developed the mydsl system, ke4nt1 was the first that fully understood the concept. As my focus is always on the core and the creation and supporting of the mydsl infrastructure, I don't have much time to spend with the individual extensions. Your continued support is much appreciated.

Posted by roberts on Dec. 14 2006,01:02

I am thinking that this might be a good thread to post those uncs that have been created and tested with the dsl2unc script.

If you post the names know good uncs converted via the script, then I can run the script on the server side.

This way we can avoid the re-sending and re-posting of these extensions. And we shall be able to have more uncs to use.

Posted by clivesay on Dec. 14 2006,03:42

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 13 2006,19:02)

If you post the names know good uncs converted via the script, then I can run the script on the server side.

I converted the gtk2 version of abiword and ran it successfully.

Chris

Posted by Juanito on Dec. 14 2006,10:34

I tried the script on gtkfind, dsl-dpkg and samba - the new unc's appear to work without problems but a couple of issues came to light:

----
Edit - dsl-dpkg is giving ro errors on apt-get update, there may be a problem with this one
----

1. On my setup, rather than creating the working directories and new unc in /home/dsl, the dsl2unc script creates them in /root with the result that the script fails due to lack of memory on larger dsl's - I fixed this by modifying the script to force it to use /home/dsl but I do not know why my system believes home=/root

2. If, as per Robert's comments, we should not mix dsl's and unc's in the same session, then maybe dpkg-restore needs to be changed to use dsl-dpkg.unc rather than dsl-dpkg.dsl?

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 14 2006,14:59

1. If you are logged in as root, your home is /root
I haven't looked at the script to see how it works, but my thought is that it expects to be run as user dsl. Just guessing.

2. From what robert has said, it looks like this will eventually be the case. At this point, however, assuming everyone uses unionfs would be a bad decision.

Posted by spock on Dec. 16 2006,16:14

Just running dsl2unc on mplayer.dsl and mplayerplug-in.dsl worked like a charm... I'm only using uci and unc since the beginning, and actually I was already using unionfs in DSL before it was integrated with a new boot option (with an uci made from unionfs.dsl). I wouldn't use DSL without, it made a big difference in speed !

Posted by roberts on Dec. 16 2006,18:00

Quote (spock @ Dec. 16 2006,08:14)

both mplayer extensions are now available in the unc area.