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Topic: Frugal Explanation

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newOldUser Offline

Group: Members
Posts: 241
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: June 16 2005,16:45

Question...

If I've got this right, the LiveCD and Frugal both load the operating system to a ramdisk in order to run. A hard drive install of DSL does not load to a ramdisk when running.

So, if I have a machine with limited memory (is there a magic number? Lets say less then 128meg), then I might want to consider a hard drive install since the only thing in memory at any given time are the processes I'm running at the moment, not the whole OS. Is this correct?

If I don't use the home, opt and mydsl options at boot time then ALL those files in the /home/dsl and /opt directories also get loaded into memory on a Frugal boot. So if you have the storage space available it makes sense to use those options at boot. If you do a hard drive install you don't need those options since the directories are already on the hard drive and will not be loaded into memory. Are all the boot options documented?...

I assume that all flavors of DSL would use a Swap partition if one is present at boot time. Is that correct also?

thanks

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green

Group: Members
Posts: 453
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: June 16 2005,18:00

I'll throw in my two cents....

Right now, I"m using a Live CD of 1.2.1 and have a Lexar 256Mb USB flash drive that contains myDSL and restore. The USB flash drive has a single partition, I did not make multiple partitions, and it has a directory named /optional
The backup.tar.gz is saved to /mnt/sda1 which means it is on the root / directory of the USB drive. Thus, when booting the Live CD, I type in this:

dsl toram mydsl=sda1 restore=sda1

toram loads the whole thing into ram, i have 256Mb on this machine.
sda1 is the flash drive partition where stuff is stored.
mydsl=sda1 means /optional
restore=sda1 means / or root of sda1

So DSL loads up anything that is in the / or root of the flash drive and anything that is in the /optional directory gets listed in the fluxbox menu as:

myDSL -> Install Optional Extensions ->

that way, I can load those ones up as I need them.

I am using the CD and USB flash drive on a 'company owned' laptop that has Win2K installed on the entire drive. Because this laptop is company owned, I did not want to chance resizing the single 20Gb NTFS partition for frugal. This method works great.

=================

On other machines I have frugal installs. Not one hard drive install.
One in particular is a 200Hhz, 128Mb ram, 512Mb Compact Flash drive, no hard drive, just the CF card with an adapter.
I followed the same basic steps that Clivesay put in his pdf document.
However, I do load the whole thing toram, with only 128Mb of ram. I do not have anything loading at boot time from / or root, but there are things waiting in the wings via the fluxbox menu from my /optional directory off of the CF card. I use that box for web surfing, email, streaming audio listening via xmms, ssh to other boxen, ftp, etc. It runs great and has never had any issues. Upgrading is very simple, which I do for every version that John and Robert put out there.

It took me a while to get a full understanding of the / and /optional thing (mydsl= & restore= + frugal). I just jumped in a did it. I used to do the hard drive installs, but found that my lack of knowledge caused me to mess it up on a regular basis. That does not happen with frugal. A reboot fixes what my fat fingers fornicate. I'll never go back to HD install.

I could go on forever about frugal and persistancy, but I digress.....

Once you get the / and /optional and frugal thing down, do the:

Make myDSL CD remaster

That is a lot of fun! You end up with a CD that contains any/all of the files/programs from / AND /optional, plus any boot time options you like. That way, you pop in the CD and go. It's awesome. It's like a PC on a CD. It doesn't get any better.

DSL rocks.

green

Group: Members
Posts: 453
Joined: Oct. 2004

Posted: June 16 2005,18:08

Quote (newOldUser @ June 16 2005,12:45)

" If I've got this right, the LiveCD and Frugal both load the operating system to a ramdisk in order to run. A hard drive install of DSL does not load to a ramdisk when running. "

A frugal CAN load everything to ram, but it does not have to.
A LiveCD CAN load everything into ram, but it does not have to.
These are options.

" So, if I have a machine with limited memory (is there a magic number? Lets say less then 128meg), then I might want to consider a hard drive install since the only thing in memory at any given time are the processes I'm running at the moment, not the whole OS. Is this correct? "

I have a machine with 48Mb ram, it's runs a frugal off it's 1Gb hard drive. But it does not load the whole thing into ram, it runs from hard drive, but as frugal, not a hard drive install. I do not consider a hard drive install an option.

" If I don't use the home, opt and mydsl options at boot time then ALL those files in the /home/dsl and /opt directories also get loaded into memory on a Frugal boot. So if you have the storage space available it makes sense to use those options at boot. If you do a hard drive install you don't need those options since the directories are already on the hard drive and will not be loaded into memory. Are all the boot options documented?... "

If 'toram' is chosen as a boot time option, then /home/dsl and /opt are loaded into ram, but not if you don't choose 'toram'. If you've got the ram, you might as well use it.

" I assume that all flavors of DSL would use a Swap partition if one is present at boot time. Is that correct also? "

If you have correctly setup a swap partition on your hard drive, yes, DSL will find it and use it.

adssse

Group: Members
Posts: 505
Joined: Mar. 2005

Posted: June 16 2005,19:33

Thanks for everyones help, its great how everyone here is willing to offer information for those of us that are not as experienced. I am not sure that I understand how all of the backup/restore, and /home /opt stuff works exactly but I am going to give it a try. Unfortunately that means you will probably see more stupid questions on this subject from me, but I am learning alot. If anyone has any more information to add it is all appreciated.