Puppy defrag app?

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bill41
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Puppy defrag app?

#1 Post by bill41 »

I have XP and Puppy 5.11 dual boot installed on my aging Sony laptop PCG-FX109K. (Pentium III, 256 RAM, 80 GB HDD). I want to use this machine as a 'distro playground', i.e. install a number of distros (DSL, TinyCore, Debian netinstall, Lubuntu, CrunchBang, etc) and learn how they differ.

At the moment I have 25 GB for the XP partition and the rest for Puppy.

I can't find a defrag app in Puppy. Is there one or is Puppy's file system sufficiently well organised not to need defrag before I set up a number of other small partitions on this HDD?

I make some but little use of XP, so I can shrink its partition after using XP to defrag the Windows partition. I am assuming Windows XP defrag will not defrag the Puppy partition. Is this right?

My RAM is too small to use Virtual Box, I have been told.

Bruce B

Re: Puppy defrag app?

#2 Post by Bruce B »

External Fragmentation

Suppose for purpose of example our pupsave file is 512M, this would be
on the small end.

Depending on the state of the partition at the time this file was written it
could be hugely fragmented. The bigger the pupsave file is the worse it
can get.

Internal Fragmentation

Irrespective of the status of the external fragmentation, the insides of the
pupsave file can become fragmented. But grossly? It's a small filesystem
and Linux handles things pretty well.

Summary

Fragmentation can occur in two distinctly different ways.

~

nooby
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#3 Post by nooby »

Yes but what program does one use to defrag the NTFS file system that puppy are frugally installed on. I mean it would be very sad if one need to go into Ms Windows just to do a defrag?

I trust one would be able to use Hirens rescue CD but if one have no CD at all?

Would be cool to have a puppy sfs or pet that can do fast and reliable defrag of internal and external HDD but also inside a file when that is necessary I agree to that :)
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

bill41
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Location: Herefordshire, UK

#4 Post by bill41 »

Many thanks, Bruce. That's helpful. So it looks as if External Fragmentation of the existing Puppy partition is the issue I need to address before setting up additional partitions. Does Puppy have an app for doing this? If it does, will it do both internal and external defrag by default or does it offer a choice?

Mine is a full install not a frugal install. So the issue for me is to safely sort out defraging the partition Windows is on and the partition Puppy is on before I resize both.

As nooby says, how do we do this?

Bruce B

#5 Post by Bruce B »

Bill,

I think nooby is really close with the clue of hiren. But we seem to both
have trouble remembering the name of the utility. One that can be used
to specifically defrag one file.

In order to illustrate better, which I want to do considering your
interest. (you'd be surprised large a percentage of people who post
queries and don't follow up)

Forgive me if I wanted to save writing several paragraphs to someone
who might sign off.

Elaborating with a make up scenario.


We have a 160GB partition which is badly fragmented. The filesystem
works on a what's available next write scenario. The filesystem is like
80% used.

There is a little free space at the beginning of the partition. Some down
the path, more down the path, so on and so forth.

Our 1GB pupsave file gets written in such a way that it spans 75GB.

Now when inside Puppy the operating system and hard disk have to do
more work. Even if Puppy fragmentation was great.

The read and write heads have to span 75GB back and forth to do their
work.

We want them to only have to span the size of 1GB. To accomplish this
we make the pupsave file contiguous.

I'm thinking noob will show some real incentive and go the extra mile for
us.

He needs to boot his computer with hiren, checkout the utilities, until he
finds the one which defragments single selected files.

Then report back.

Or we could wait for someone with a memory intact.

Hang in there, a solution is at hand, we just forget its name.

Bruce

~

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Burn_IT
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#6 Post by Burn_IT »

There are many utilities that work in Windows (and under the Hiren windows. Most do their best to both defragment single files and also the disk space.
The one I use most is call MyDefrag that works best with NTFS file system. It has many scripts available to do different types of de-fragmentation. And is a Portable App.
I don't actually know of one that runs under Linux
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

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Flash
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#7 Post by Flash »

Any partition, no matter its format or how badly fragmented it is, can be defragmented this way:
  • 1. Copy the contents of the fragmented partition (call it partition A) to (empty) partition (call it partition B.) (But don't use dd to do it because dd will retain the fragmenting - I think.)
    2. Delete the contents of partition A.
    3. Copy the contents of partition B back to (now empty) partition A.
This should work for fragmenting a single file as well. Just copy the file back and forth.

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Burn_IT
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#8 Post by Burn_IT »

Just deleting the contents of A won't work. You would need to reformat it to clear/reset the tables(in any and all file systems)
"Just think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush" - T Pratchett

bill41
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#9 Post by bill41 »

Many thanks for all these ideas and help.

My concern about copying from one partition to another is that I don't yet have the empty partition to copy to and in creating this empty partition without firstly degragmenting the disk I might damage, delete or make inaccessible existing files. If I can create this empty partition then my problem is solved. I can put another distro on this partition. (I think Catch 22 is alive and well!)

I would be quite happy to use the XP defrag utility if it will do the job for the whole HDD, including the partition with Puppy on it. Will the XP defrag utility work with a HDD that already has more than one partition? The Puppy manual suggests using Windows to defrag the disc before partitioning and installing. But the manual makes no mention of defragmenting multiple partitions or an existing Puppy partition - no need to if all you are doing is a dual boot install with Windows.

Sylvander
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#10 Post by Sylvander »

1. "My concern about copying from one partition to another is that I don't yet have the empty partition to copy to"
(a) You don't need an empty partition to copy to, just a destination folder that you make [on a partition that has enough space] to take the contents of the source partition.

(b) See Defragged & restored C: in 12 min using SyncBack in BoxPup.
You don't need to use SynBack to do the work; I now use either Xfe->[to copy and restore], or snap2->[to copy] and Xfe->[to restore].
Notice I used the linked method way back in July 2009.

(c) I normally have an image backup [of the original source partition contents] in reserve, just for insurance in case anything goes wrong.

(d) Unfortunately, can't use the above method on the folders/files held on the Linux filesystem inside a pupsave.

bill41
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#11 Post by bill41 »

Many thanks, Sylvander.
I haven't used Xfe or snap2 before so I have a little learning to do. Then I'll try your suggestion.
It may be a few days before I can sort this out as I'm off to Scotland (Inverness).

dawnsboy

Check Filesystem

#12 Post by dawnsboy »

I do not have a simple solution for defragmenting a hard drive in Puppy but I can at least check and see if there is a need. I booted fluppy 013 into ram and typed the following command at the prompt in a console window.

fsck -nvf /dev/sda1 (where sda1 represents the hard drive on this system)

Here are the results:

# fsck -nvf /dev/sda1
fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

129857 inodes used (1.35%)
539 non-contiguous files (0.4%)
128 non-contiguous directories (0.1%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 5410/70/0
1436698 blocks used (3.75%)
0 bad blocks
1 large file

96178 regular files
12817 directories
59 character device files
26 block device files
0 fifos
389 links
20760 symbolic links (19147 fast symbolic links)
8 sockets
--------
130237 files
It appears that this filesystem need not be defragmented.

I have heard of a program no longer in development called defragfs that will defrag an ext2 and ext3 filesystem. It is a command line utility. Source code is still available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/defragfs/

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puppyluvr
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#13 Post by puppyluvr »

:D Hello,
The "Copy to/ Copy back" method does a perfect defrag..
Also, make your Linux partition an ext3......
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dawnsboy

Defrag from Windows

#14 Post by dawnsboy »

@bill41

I did google up a linux filesystem defragmenting utillity that can be run from Windows called Ultra Defrag.

http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/

Sylvander
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#15 Post by Sylvander »

puppyluvr wrote:The "Copy to/ Copy back" method does a perfect defrag..
Agreed. :D
Well, nearly perfect...
And the best defrag result I'd ever seen. 8)

The only imperfection was a few empty sectors at the beginning of the partition. [Used to do the necessary, and left behind?]
All of the remainder was PERFECT.
No gaps...
All contiguous.

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puppyluvr
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#16 Post by puppyluvr »

:D Hello,

Yes. and simple to do... :D
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nooby
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#17 Post by nooby »

Puppyluvr that does not help us with frugal install on NTFS that needs to retain everything as is so your suggestion

Also, make your Linux partition an ext3......


would just destroy the MsWindows one payed so much money for and that should be there intact.

So I vote for Hiren or some other such. As I remember it was a big rar or otherwise compressed file with tools and one or two of them where for defrag. Calimed to be the fastest and best such tool on the net.

Being the total noob that I am I totally failed to find it and to use it.
I am not on that level obviosly. I did put much time and effort in to it and failed.

Now I don't want to use Ms Windows anymore due to it want to install a lot of changes each time one boot it up.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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puppyluvr
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#18 Post by puppyluvr »

:D Hello,
I believe the OP, bill41, said that he had already defrag`d the Windoze partition, and was inquiring as to how to do the same with his "Distro playground"...ie a Linux FS partition that his M$ cant see or defrag....
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nooby
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#19 Post by nooby »

Puppy luvr I owe you a heart felt apology. You are so right and I am incredibly wrong. Vry typical of me.
At the moment I have 25 GB for the XP partition and the rest for Puppy.

I can't find a defrag app in Puppy. Is there one or is Puppy's file system sufficiently well organised not to need defrag before I set up a number of other small partitions on this HDD?

I make some but little use of XP, so I can shrink its partition after using XP to defrag the Windows partition. I am assuming Windows XP defrag will not defrag the Puppy partition. Is this right?
You can read and I fail to read.

So does Puppy have a way to defrag a puppy formatted partition?

I have no idea due to me only do frugal install and don't do ext2 other than inside loop mounted squashfiles :?
My bad indeed
I will now stop following this thread so I don't derail it further.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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rjbrewer
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Re: Check Filesystem

#20 Post by rjbrewer »

dawnsboy wrote:I do not have a simple solution for defragmenting a hard drive in Puppy but I can at least check and see if there is a need. I booted fluppy 013 into ram and typed the following command at the prompt in a console window.

fsck -nvf /dev/sda1 (where sda1 represents the hard drive on this system)

Here are the results:

# fsck -nvf /dev/sda1
fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
e2fsck 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
Pass 1: Checking inodes, blocks, and sizes
Pass 2: Checking directory structure
Pass 3: Checking directory connectivity
Pass 4: Checking reference counts
Pass 5: Checking group summary information

129857 inodes used (1.35%)
539 non-contiguous files (0.4%)
128 non-contiguous directories (0.1%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 5410/70/0
1436698 blocks used (3.75%)
0 bad blocks
1 large file

96178 regular files
12817 directories
59 character device files
26 block device files
0 fifos
389 links
20760 symbolic links (19147 fast symbolic links)
8 sockets
--------
130237 files
It appears that this filesystem need not be defragmented.

I have heard of a program no longer in development called defragfs that will defrag an ext2 and ext3 filesystem. It is a command line utility. Source code is still available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/defragfs/
Very good:

http://ttcshelbyville.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/

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