Why Do an HD install ?
Forum: HD Install
Topic: Why Do an HD install ?
started by: humpty
Posted by humpty on April 03 2006,15:38
all right, it's been bugging me all week now, i'm curious, what is it with HD-install people ? is it really not enough ram? or is there something psychologically 'safe' about placing something permanantly on HD 
or maybe it's about shaving a few seconds off the boot process?
It is a known phenomenon that software versioning has a cancerous effect on all major operating systems. DSL has
has unique way of circumventing this. And yet.. (o.k I give up).
Government Health Warning:
Installing DSL to HD ;
makes you vulnerable to lung cancer, blindness, heart disease, harms unborn babies, is toxic, clogs your arteries,
can kill, and can harm others.
Posted by doobit on April 03 2006,16:42
Yeah, I don't get it either. The only good reason I can think of (well, two) is for those who are doing developement specifically for DSL, and for those few cases where a Frugal just won't boot, and you don't have a floppy or CDROM drive that you can boot from.
Posted by cbagger01 on April 03 2006,17:27
The main advantage as far as I can see is for the users whoseRAM needs vs. RAM installed don't match up.
In their situation, a full HD install is better.
Posted by roberts on April 04 2006,09:07
Just too many negatives for me. But it is the prevailing mindset.It is the way, your father did it. It is the way the monopolist does it.
I see suggestions to do this for low ram systems, but then as soon as the user tries to add other software, then run into trouble anyway. Typically run of of room for the addtional apps that they are trying to add. Or they can't resist the temptation of using myDSL extensions which are not made for traditional hard drive installs. Or then they wish to do an 'upgrade'.
The 'gnu generation' needs to come to DSL's 'gnu way' of using an OS.
Posted by VorlonFog on April 04 2006,19:00
I prefer to use a hard-disk install because I'm running DSL on a Gateway Connected Touchpad internet appliance (vintage 2001.) It has a 400 MHz Transmeta Crusoe processor and I've upgraded the memory to a whopping 256 megabytes of PC100 DRAM. It runs from a 1 gigabyte compact flash card. I'm using this device for its touchscreen capability in my media room where its main requirements are: 1) wireless [thanks DSL for Atheros support!] 2) browsing [thanks DSL for Firefox!] and 3) Javascript [thanks DSL for the Java package!]Once the configuration is working, I'd like to keep it fixed
and static, so I prefer the hard-disk install, where I can tweak to my heart's content while still maintaining the small footprint of DSL. Or can someone suggest a
better way?
Posted by joer on April 04 2006,19:12
Hope you flash device doesn't die. They have limited writes.
Posted by doobit on April 04 2006,19:20
| Quote (VorlonFog @ April 04 2006,15:00) |
| Once the configuration is working, I'd like to keep it fixed and static, so I prefer the hard-disk install, where I can tweak to my heart's content while still maintaining the small footprint of DSL. Or can someone suggest a better way? |
Yes, use Frugal with the apps you need saved to the top directory. They will load automatically everytime you boot. The mydsl=hda1 and restore=hda1 bootoptions can be put in place when you install, or using a grub install they can be edited into the grub menu.lst file. That way you limit the number of read/writes on your CF disk to bootup and shutdown and the settings and apps are the same everytime.
Posted by VorlonFog on April 04 2006,19:37
joer: CF life is approximately 10,000 writes minimum, 50,000 writes maximum. I'm not making a swap partition and only running the browser to display a touchpanel for media center control. So, writes to disk will be almost zero once everything is setup.bdoobit: Thank you for the frugal install and grub menu.lst suggestions! When you suggest saving apps to the top directory which path is that?
Posted by roberts on April 04 2006,19:57
Flash device running frugal is usually mounted at /cdromSo extensions placed in /cdrom will autoload.
Limited writes, be sure your browser's cache is set to zero, or point it to a ramdisk and limit its cache size.
Posted by doobit on April 04 2006,19:59
This is hard to define and I think there needs to be some standard wording for it in the Linux community. I'm speaking of the same directory that KNOPPIX is in. It's the one you get to when you type cd ~ in a terminal. In Windows it's the root directory, but you can't call it that in Linux. Also, FYI, beginning with DSL-2.3 you can create a new directory called /mydsl and put the extentions inside that instead of the top directory, and DSL will find them. This directory can be placed on a pendrive so you can use the live CD for bootup and put dsl mydsl=sda1 restore=sda1 in the bootline and your settings and apps will be loaded everytime as long as the pendrive is plugged in when you boot from the CD.
<edit since robert posted> I forgot about the /cdrom mount point for CF.
Posted by VorlonFog on April 04 2006,20:15
Many thanks, everyone. I've already downloaded DSL v2.3, so I'll try out all your suggestions.roberts: THANK YOU for the reminder about the browser cache - I'll point it to the ramdisk.
Posted by PeterRosenberg on April 04 2006,21:21
Interestingly - DSL seems to attract users with old hardware (like myself) that are old (but still candidates for DSL/Knoppix) and which may have had (like mine) a Windoze-something mid-ninety stuff. I suppose it must be the small footprint for DSL and more importantly the small growth of footprint that attracts people.My own interest to especially HD install (I'm sure I share it with others) are that my IBM 365XD Laptop with CDRom does not have a BIOS capable of CDRom boot !
And in my case I want to replace WINDOZE entirely with a DSL (Frugall I guess), CDRom bootable or not.
It could be nice, if someone could write install/setup programs targeted for the various 'scenarios' to get to DSL, like:
- I'm on MS-DOS (FAT16), now I want DSL
- I'm on MS-DOS+WIN3x (FAT16), now I want DSL
- I'm on Win9x, now I want DSL
- I'm on WinNT (NTFS), now I want DSL
- I'm on Win2K (NTFS), now I want DSL
- I'm on WinME, now I want DSL
- I'm on WinXP (NTFS), now I want DSL
and, forget the rest, they know *nix already
Let me not dwell over a wish list here, and keep the HD install reasons as this:
There's many out there, who cannot boot from USB/CDRom !
Otherwise I totally agree with Humpty and thanks for asking
Peter Rosenberg
Posted by roberts on April 04 2006,22:03
Old computers usually means they have a floppy drive which it can boot from. The simpliest answer is to download the bootfloppy image and make a boot floppy. Then with cdrom in drive, boot from the floppy and away you go.I know others have written about loadlin and other such. But I find the boot floppy the easiest.
As for Windows type systems, my knowlede is becomming so faded that others would have to help you there.
Posted by lovdsl on April 04 2006,22:41
Anyone who has played with win95 and freeware on a dx2, hopes to find something in linux that will give a gui and some basic programs to play with..a newbie soon realizes that there are few distros available at this level..mulinux, deli..dsl looks pretty good and claimes to power a dx with 16 meg ram..those familiar with linux know this is not a gui environment. most newbies likely don'nt have a clue..I chose a hd install because on old units dsl requires a few extensions to be anything..and my attemps to frugal were interupted by no space to add..this of course can be solved but people go with what is easiest and the availabilityof the hd install led me to try a hd install and was a fast track to adding several extensions..great help from the forum got me a nice looking gui desktop hd install and based on the known alternatives to dsl I was impressed..I am not suprized people flock to it in hope of powering an old box..what is interesting is that there are so few alternatives..dsl has a different agenda but is caught in the demand for small fast gui linux for these old antiques...personally one 95 box is enough..and a couple of 51/2' floppy command liners leaves me with a few good boxes crying for an os...dispite my occasional frustrations as a linux newbie..dsl HD rocked my world..I can not be the only one..what is so surprizing?
Posted by cbinusa on April 05 2006,05:49
Am new to all this so may be missing something. I install to HD on 3 early P2 boxes which run BOINC workunits 24x7. I can run DSL in ram but if I lose power or need to reboot, I lose all the work the box has done on that particular work unit. Some work units take several days to run. Installing to HD protects against this loss. DSL still seems to run mostly in RAM. The boxes do not have recordable CD drives. Is there a better way to do this besides install to HD?
Posted by clivesay on April 05 2006,11:26
| Quote (cbinusa @ April 05 2006,00:49) |
| I can run DSL in ram but if I lose power or need to reboot, I lose all the work the box has done on that particular work unit. Some work units take several days to run. Installing to HD protects against this loss. DSL still seems to run mostly in RAM. The boxes do not have recordable CD drives. Is there a better way to do this besides install to HD? |
If all data is saved in /home and/or /opt I recommend you do a frugal install with a persistent /home and /opt directories. This means that /home and /opt are actually on a partition and not part of ramdisk. On the DSL download mirrors there is a 'pdfdocs' folder that contains some howtos for DSL. Check out the one on frugal installs.
Good luck
Chris