full install vs. frugal vs. ... full frugal?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: full install vs. frugal vs. ... full frugal?
started by: ned

Posted by ned on July 14 2005,13:39

So perhaps my problem is an incorrect frugal install, but I think it's more my old laptop -- it only has 64meg of memory. This means that when running a frugal install, my CPU keeps topping out -- I wasn't even able to transfer files via axyFTP because there wasn't enough memory (but this could be an issue with the location of /home -- see below). This is not a good solution for me, but since DSL works so well, I will not give up!

Also, I love the idea of a frugal install, so that I can update to new versions of DSL without wiping myDSL. So how's this sound, for a solution:

1. Do a full HD install of DSL.
2. Load it up with the apps I want.
3. When the update comes out, use mkmydsl to save myDSL image to CD.
4. Frugal install the image I just made (myDSL).
5. THEN frugal upgrade to the new version of DSL.
6. Use mkmydsl again to build a new image, which should be myDSL plus the upgrade.
7. Do a full HD install of the new DSL/myDSL combo and wait for the next upgrade, then do it again.

It's a bit convoluted, but would it work? It's like a "thrifty" install, instead of all-out frugal... :;):

Conversely, can I just run the apps I need from command line (FTP, firefox, etc.), saving the memory need for X? And how do I reconfigure the boot to do that, since I didn't do it with frugal (I assume you boot to "dsl 2"?).

One other thing, with frugal -- I set it up so that my /home and /opt were on a separate partition, but now I can't access that partition, even as root (says "permission denied"). What's up with that? And why does /home actually go to /ramdisk/home? I don't want my home in ramdisk, do I -- isn't that part of the memory problem? Shouldn't it be going to /dev/hda3/home??

Okay, so that's a lot of questions for what I thought was simple post. Of course, if my idea about mkmydsl/frugal upgrades sounds like it'll float, I'll just do a full HD install, which wipes out all my other questions...

[take a deep breath]