Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

JB4x4 · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 256

First off, a big thanks to forum user MU. His work on compiling the 2.6.27 kernel is what discovered the trick. I just applied it to Puppy 4.1.1 - The method used here is a replacement initrd.gz file which contains more loop devices and an edited init file, and an extra boot parameter.

Here we go.....

This was tested in a frugal install of Puppy 4.1.1 using GRUB to boot. You need to add an extra parameter to the kernel line in order for this it work. The proper way would be to recompile the kernel, but this is easier / quicker.

Example:

kernel /vmlinuz max_loop=25

You kernel line may look different depending on whether you have your files in a sub-directory etc. The important part is adding "max_loop=25"

Download and replace your initrd.gz file with the one included in this post. REBOOT

Open the Boot Manager and add away...... (Note the boot manager says only add 3, but you can now add more). Myself, I am now using Adobe Acrobat - devx - kernel-src - wine - VirtualBox - OpenOffice. That 6 Smile

14 more to go......

Have fun - feedback is always welcome.
JB

Béèm · Posted: Wed 05 Nov 2008, 21:05 Post subject:

Are the pup_roX directories automatically created corresponding the n° of selected sfs files?

JB4x4 · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 256

There are new directories, pup_ro7 - pup_ro22, in the replacement initrd.gz file. In theory 255 directories could be created (in the initrd.gz file) along with proper editing of the file "init"

JB

technosaurus · Joined: 18 May 2008 Posts: 3843

a definite add to the next community edition

Now if we could only have a boot parameter for adding SFS files at boot the options are infinite (instantly configurable puplet from a CD/DVD with every possible sfs file included - just have various preselected sets of SFS files in each boot option) We could boot a minimal system or a totally bloated complete system from the same disk depending on our mood.

Does anyone know how to edit init to do this? MU maybe or Barry?

Lobster · Posted: Wed 05 Nov 2008, 23:11 Post subject:

If this was implemented in 4.2 - which is the next version of puppy,
would there be a danger of crashing if people who have fish for brains (me for example) tried adding 15 SFS and only had 128MB of Ram

- is this not a problem? Confused

Pizzasgood · Posted: Thu 06 Nov 2008, 00:47 Post subject:

I'm not entirely certain with the latest versions of Puppy, but I've been under the impression that only the pup_xxx.sfs file ever gets copied into ram. Other ones are just mounted from wherever they are. If that is the case, including multiple .sfs files on a CD would be very slow unless you first copied them onto the HD.

Probably wouldn't be hard to change it to copy them to ram. To make things more difficult, you could add ways to specify which files are copied to ram, and which are mounted where they stand, along with a boot option to decide interactively which files to use and how to use them.

raffy · Joined: 25 May 2005 Posts: 4636 Location: Manila

Probably have two subdirectories on CD (or psubdir), 'mount' and 'toram', and the sfs contents are mounted and copied to ram, respectively.

In Slax, additional sfs are copied to one subdirectory before building the ISO, and all sfs get mounted in the order that the files are listed.

nutts4life · Joined: 15 Feb 2008 Posts: 263 Location: UK

JB4x4

Superb stuff, do you think you could post your changed fils that you made in the initrd-tree in a tar file, so i can integrate this into unleashed?

Who da man.

n4l

Béèm · Posted: Thu 06 Nov 2008, 09:04 Post subject:

Béèm · Posted: Thu 06 Nov 2008, 19:40 Post subject:

JB4x4 · Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 256

@nutts4life

Here are the changes I added to the file initrd.gz - The tar contains the extra directories, loops, and the modified init script. If you search the init script for "JB4x4" you will find additions in 3 places.

JB

HairyWill · Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 2949 Location: Southampton, UK

Sounds cool. My understanding was the original limit of three extra squash files was put in place by Barry because of performance problems with the layered filesystem if it had too many layers. Has this problem been fixed? What is the maximum number of layers you have tested it with.

Béèm · Posted: Fri 07 Nov 2008, 05:07 Post subject:

HairyWill,
JB4x4 wrote he has added 6 sfs files.
I have added 4 now and I don't feel a performance decrease.

But there might be another issue with redundancy, if different sfs files contains parts of a same directory structure and have same file names.

As far as I understand the loading process it's done alphabetically.
I suppose it's the last loaded which will be actually used in case of same file names.

But even with a max of 3 this situation could happen already.

shankargopal · Joined: 03 Dec 2005 Posts: 295

Would this work with 4.1.1 retro too? I assume not?

Béèm · Posted: Fri 07 Nov 2008, 11:41 Post subject:

I don't think there is a restriction on normal or retro.