Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

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Questions about the Swap File & HDD Access in Puppy 4.11

1. Does it matter where the Swap File is located?

First, last, or even on a different HDD than the primary bootable HDD?
(The latter question is rhetorical since I only have one HDD on my
laptop.)

2. Am I correct that the Swap File is formatted as Primary Partition and linux-swap in GParted?

3. Both of my laptop installs are 4.11 Frugal both HDD's are Primary & Bootable but on this one sda1 is /initrd/mnt/dev_save and on the other it is /initrd/mnt/dev_ro2 I cannot copy files to either HDD - I get an out of space error even though there are 70+G of available space. Why would that be, please?

(Note: It is Mounted. Right now it appears that anything I try to copy from an external USB HDD to the internal HDD merely goes to the tmp which I take to be the Swap file.)

[Béèm]

I think I advised you already to read [urlhttp://www.puppylinux.com/development/howpuppyworks.html]this document[/url] for a better comprehension of puppy's working.

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I cannot get that URL to open - it keeps timing out.

EDIT: Finally got into that URL - it is interesting but very dated (2006) and complex beyond what I really needed. Unless I missed something there is nothing there which addresses my specific questions (see previous) and problems.

BTW: This is a really helpful Thread with a link to a video of an install:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=29653

I have read through it twice and posted a couple of questions on page 5 of the thread - no answers yet. I created this thread so that my specific circumstances do not clutter that thread.

It is really weird that only under 4.11 I cannot write to my HDD drives when loaded as Frugal.

Both laptops worked fine in 3.1 and this one was working OK briefly in 4.1

Also, I read somewhere that the HDD should be Flagged Boot and LBA but GParted will not allow me to add the LBA Flag.

Any chance these are known problems with 4.11?

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Just noticed something else weird.

sda1 (the only hdd) does not show up in /mnt

Also, in Puppy Video Wizard on my other laptop xorg only offers two 1400x1050 options, nothing lower - I have never experienced that from xorg before.

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I did searches on "psubdir" and on "ext3 frugal" and found some interesting stuff.

(I had pasted the URL's in here twice - after re-issuing the searches but for some bizarre reason the "ins" key when bumped closes all of the open Seamonkey windows! (I bumped it twice and don't have time to do the searches again just now.)

Anyhow, the only odd thing I noted in GRUB was pmedia=atahd so I just changed it to pmedia=idehd I also added "noacpi" just in case!

/etc/rc.d/PUPSTATE looked the same as those Forum and Barry's Blog threads said it should (e.g. DEV1FS="ext3"

After a reboot sda1 now shows up in ROX-filer and Pmount ... BUT when I try to copy a file from the external USB drive sdc1 it still only goes to the Swap File and not to the HDD sda1.

Not really sure where to look next!

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Another Note: Seamonkey with Puppy 4.11 ext3 and Frugal on this laptop is unstable. When I pressed Submit for the prior post it sent then closed Seamonkey - without any error message or request to send a crash report. Very odd.

Also, on the other laptop which I have been discussing I just rebooted using Puppy pfix=ram then swapoff /dev/sda2 then opened GParted to see what may have changed.

All appears well ... BUT ... I cannot toggle on LBA and still do not know if that is necessary (I tried it with boot on and boot off) - GParted just cycles back to the same pop-up window and ignores my request to activate the LBA flag - no error message.

[technosaurus]

how many threads did you start?

Yes there is a whole thread dedicated to this problem it is something like [insert here] kills seamonkey

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[Pizzasgood]

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# ls -l /mnt/home/
total 524828
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-11-17 18:24 boot
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 2008-11-17 17:34 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-11-17 19:32 pup411
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 536870912 2008-11-17 19:16 pup_save.2fs

# echo "test test test" > /mnt/home/TEST_FILE


# ls -l /mnt/home/
total 524832
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2008-11-17 18:24 boot
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 2008-11-17 17:34 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-11-17 19:32 pup411
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 536870912 2008-11-17 19:16 pup_save.2fs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 15 2008-11-18 09:19 TEST_FILE

# cat /mnt/home/TEST_FILE
test test test
#

# rm /mnt/home/TEST_FILE
#

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CatDude walked me through what appears to be the solution to a problem in the setup of Puppy 4.11

He had me Move /root/my-documents into /mnt/home then drag my-documents back to /root using Link (relative).

Now I can perform the normal function of copying files and folders into my-documents without running into the bottleneck of the Personal Storage File or the pup_save file (the first limited to 1.8G the second to 4G).

I have done the same with /root/.mozilla and am now copying my backup .mozilla content so I may resume normal use of my laptop.

The Puppy folks really need to fix the install process so that these links of common folders (or /root itself) is done automatically. I have wasted 4 days and dozens of posts to chase this down - no typical user (esp. non-Geek) would have bothered. The Geeks can always remove the linked folders if they don't want them.

WDYT?

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Moving /root/.mozilla to /mnt/home and symlinking it from /root/.mozilla does not work - Seamonkey says it now cannot find the Default folder.

Do I need to symlink /root?

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CatDude directed me here:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/linux/answers/Applications_GUI_Multimedia/Sharing_Mozilla_Mail_Messages_and_Settings_on_a_Dual_Boot_Linux_Windows_Set_up

This appears to contain the essence of what I need to know to solve my /root/.mozilla problem.

CatDude also sent some additional details which I am now going to try out to see how badly I can mess up what sounds easy when he does it ...

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Just observed something that I do not understand but that appears to relieve a problem with the Personal Storage File size being constantly challenged via normal user activity.

Instead of opening file (the icon of a house on the top left of the screen) and saving files and folders there if one opens sda1 and saves them there the Personal Storage File is unaffected.

I tested this by moving all of the documents and images my family had stored in "the house" (file) to sda1 and my reported available Personal Storage File space swelled.

Can anyone explain this, please?

[rcrsn51]