Frugal Picture Frame, Data Corruption?Forum: HD Install Topic: Frugal Picture Frame, Data Corruption? started by: beakmyn Posted by beakmyn on Dec. 13 2006,17:08
So I just rebuilt my digital picture (www.frontiernet.net/~beakmynt). Still have to update the write up though.Anyway the issue I had with the old system was data corruption by not cleanly shutting down the system. Had a few power outages when the frame was running, etc. So, now I've got a Grub Frugal install working with Feh and unclutter .dsl'ed, a peristant /home /opt and a few other things backed up for persistant passwords and ssh. I mount hda3 (where the pictures are) read-only (-o remount,ro) So, here's the question: Being that a frugal install is basically a LiveCD on the hard disk, if the machine is booted and running and then I lose power or suffer some other "unclean" shutdown. Will there be data corruption to my install? My understanding is that the system is basically in a pseudo read-only state. Granted if I haven't saved any changes by shutting down and letting the system do a normal backup to hda2, I'll lose those changes.... If I issue the mount command I see
My concern is /dev/hda1 being mounted rw which makes me think if I lose power it could conceivably be in the middle of a write and corrupt my install and then I'd have to do another frugal install to be able to boot. As, you've probably guessed I'm trying to make the system as bullet-resistant as possible. Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 13 2006,17:19
Remove the "frugal" keyword from the bootloader to make it mounted as RO by default (possibly remount,rw when needed?)Alternatively/additionally: use toram. But I see that's out of the question as you do not have enough ram. Posted by beakmyn on Dec. 13 2006,20:13
Thanks, I figured there was more that could be done. I ruled out toram early on when I tried to remaster it and it flat out locked up. 80MB RAM just isn't enough but for the picture frame it works great. With the current set-up I shouldn't ever need to make hda1 writeable since I can still manually load Samba.dsl from hda2 remount hda3 rw and copy over new pictures then remount ro. Someday maybe I'll set up rsync but I don't update the pictures much. Thanks again for the tip. Posted by JoeOldendick on Jan. 01 2007,06:53
How much RAM is needed to load to ram.I have 2 partitions the first partition has DSL and the scripts and the 2nd partition is basically just photos. I am not sure I understand 100% though how to mount the first partition as read only everytime the machine boots. I certainly don't want any corruption. the 2nd partition will be updated manually and I could ssh to mount and unmount that 2nd partition. right now it is a 266mhz box with 128 mb of ram...not sure i need to do more than that. Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 01 2007,07:01
128mb of ram should just be enough to boot with toram. You could also copy the photos from the 2nd partition over to the ramdisk then unmount that.
Posted by JoeOldendick on Jan. 01 2007,13:48
I have no idea where the frugal keyword is. Posted by beakmyn on Jan. 01 2007,14:51
it's in the grub/lilo boot command lineFor Grub /boot/grub/menu.lst title DSL kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda2 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal Posted by walterk1 on Jan. 05 2007,03:37
Hey beakmyn, I saw your posts on the warehouse site, and followed you here. I have some dumb questions on this thread. (Maybe one day I will graduate to silly questions.)I will search for #2. 1 - did you create 3 mounts? hda1, hda2, hda3? By the responses, I see you have frugal install on hda1 and photos on hda3. What do you have on hda2? Is that the USB drive mount? 2 - is there a way with DSL to backup all the files/mucking I created following the project? (scripts, xinitrc, bootlocal files) I could backup each one, but did not know if there was a faster method. For anyone reading this thread: I too am interested in making a bulletproof frame. I wonder if I could create a script to mount hda3 as rw first, then get photos via Samba or rsync, and finally remount hda3 as ro again. Is that possible? Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Jan. 05 2007,21:42
walterk1:1. hda is one device, which in this case is the primary IDE drive. By partitioning (ie fdisk) and making 3 partitions, you can get the same setup. 2. See backup/restore - esp ~/.filetool.list 3. yes - if you plan on placing this in a script, you can just remount it at the very end. Posted by walterk1 on Jan. 06 2007,02:35
Thanks thehatsrule. Will lookup backup/restore (I remembered seeing it on the site, but got lost in DPF project)Gotcha on the hda. I think I will recreate and setup a photos partition, instead of setting up on the OS space. Good to know about the mount options. I am trying to build a frame for my 70 year old folks, and once it is done, I want it to be bullet proof app. The only thing that would change is the photos partition as new files from their WinXP box is copied to the frame. Posted by beakmyn on Jan. 06 2007,19:03
1. hda1 - 60mb DSL frugal install hda2 - 10mb DSl backup/restore and mydsl repository hda3 - rest of drive photos and scripts 2. yes, hda2 it backs up my /home/dsl/.filetool.lst
/etc/ssh /etc/shadow allows for persistant storage or ssh fingerprint and user passwords /opt/bootlocal.sh
myiwconfig.sh
My files/scripts/feh.dsl/unclutter.dsl are up here: < http://www.frontiernet.net/~pictureframe > Using my method everything is currently read-only and I can literally pull the plug and it's fine when it restarts. Done it several times in fact to show people. I'm currently using a NFS mount to transfer photos and files. I use the standard NFS in Ubuntu and on my Window's machine I use the free version of NFSAxe. It works well I just remount sudo mount /dev/hda3 -o remount,rw then copy the new photos over then sudo mount /dev/hda3 -o remount,ro -to make it readonly again. The only caveat I've seen it to NOT mount the NFS share to a folder that is in the backup/restore path. Otherwise on shutdown DSL will backup all the files in that folder (treats it like a regular folder) so I mount the NFS share in /mnt/share folder instead (may have to mkdir /mnt/share first) It's been going real well. I'm now looking into the old DaliPC (google it) and the new wallgui (new name) to show a clock, rss news/weather on the screen instead of using feh. |