Slacko 5.7 making Large Save Folders

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Les Kerf
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Slacko 5.7 making Large Save Folders

#1 Post by Les Kerf »

Running Slacko 5.7 from a live CD and saving back to the CD in multi-session mode.

Acer Aspire 7741Z-4643 Laptop
Intel Pentium P6100 processor
3 GB DDR3 RAM
Firefox 17.0.11 (came with the iso)

I don't do a "save" very often, and usually only when I add bookmarks. Any downloads are immediately "moved" to the hard drive, so they aren't being saved on the CD.

Trouble is, when I do perform a "save", the save folders on the CD average about 50 MB each, and with almost 200 MB used by the ISO it doesn't take very many save sessions to fill up a CD.

I have tried looking inside the saved folders and can't figure out where the extra size is being used. The "root" folder in the last save folder indicates 57 MB, but the only thing inside the root folder is a "Choices" folder of 6114 Bytes (not MB).

The CD I am currently using has only seven save folders and shows 559 MB being used, so I won't get many more "saves" on this disc.

I am wondering if Firefox may be part of the problem; I'm not sure how to go about limiting its cache etc.

Anyway, the CD gets full MUCH sooner than it should; I have used live CD with Precise Puppy and it did not do this.

I have tried DVD before but this particular laptop doesn't seem to like them very well as they all gave trouble long before getting full. I think it is just a quarrelsome optical drive.

Any ideas?

Thanks for the help,
Les

Les Kerf
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Joined: Sun 24 Jun 2012, 13:30

#2 Post by Les Kerf »

Perhaps this would be better if it were moved to a Slacko thread?

Sylvander
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#3 Post by Sylvander »

How about using Gdmap [or an alternative] to display disk usage on the CD?
I can display the content of the saved folders on mine.

By far the best FREE program I've ever used to display disk space usage is:
SpaceMonger 2.1.2 Pre3
I've had it for years.
Ran it in Win2000Pro originally.
Now run it in Puppy using WINE.

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rufwoof
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#4 Post by rufwoof »

I am wondering if Firefox may be part of the problem; I'm not sure how to go about limiting its cache etc.
Quite possibly.

Open root and (assuming ROX) click the eye icon (to show all files) and right click .mozilla folder/directory and select PROPERTIES. That will provide a indication of how much space Firefox might be eating. And/Or it might be under /root/.cache

In Firefox EDIT, PREFERENCES, select the ADVANCED tab and click on the NETWORK sub-tab. Click the two CLEAR choices (assuming you're OK with that) and then check (tick) the override cache management box and enter 0 (zero) in the Limit Cache box.

That should be fine if you connect via DSL/Cable, but if you connect via a modem then it could be a problem as nothing will be cached (available locally to be reused).

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Flash
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#5 Post by Flash »

Still, it's odd that Les can't see whatever it is in the session folder that's taking up all that space on the CD. Did you left-click the hairy eyeball in Rox before you looked in the session folder on the CD, so the hidden files and folders show?

I've read that there is a lot more overhead (basically, wasted space) used saving a session on a CD than there is on a DVD, but 50 MB?

And this topic definitely belongs in the Multisession section.

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mikeb
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#6 Post by mikeb »

urlclassifier files get big too... disable antiphishing and delete the files.


also note firefox 4+ has a profile that is a minimum of 20MB which is why I stuck at 3.6 and there is no way to avoid that.

Every time you run firefox most of the profile folders get updated so will be saved at each session.

mike

Les Kerf
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#7 Post by Les Kerf »

Thanks for the suggestions. Once I figured out how to use Gdmap it was quite revealing; Firefox is indeed the major culprit.

I will make the changes as suggested and then burn a fresh CD.

Thanks again,
Les

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greengeek
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#8 Post by greengeek »

Hi Les, once you have sorted the problem to your satisfaction could you post back and list specifically the changes you made to achieve the result? I am just getting to understand the problems with firefox cache and am keen to get it sorted on a pup i am building. cheers

Sylvander
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#9 Post by Sylvander »

Here's my Spacemonger display of the space usage on my Lighthouse64 multi-session DVD-RW disk:
Notice that in each of the 2 folders, Firefox occupies 12.6MB.
i.e. 2 x 12.6MB = 25.2MB
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mikeb
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#10 Post by mikeb »

greengeek ...check out the profile in that 4.12 I gave you for firefox... it keeps the profile to around 5-6MB.
Again firefox 4+ that increases to around 15-20MB

mike

EdD
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#11 Post by EdD »

Les, assuming that your laptop will boot from a usb drive, the solution may be to create a dedicated 16G usb drive for your Slacko installation.
Dell optiplex 780, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E7500 @ 2.93GHz, 4g RAM, w/ATI RV620 LE Radeon HD 3450. Currently running a full install of Slacko 6.3.0 ( 32 bit version).

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greengeek
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#12 Post by greengeek »

mikeb wrote:greengeek ...check out the profile in that 4.12 I gave you for firefox... it keeps the profile to around 5-6MB.
Again firefox 4+ that increases to around 15-20MB
What is the best way to check this out? Is there a .config or .ini file I should be looking at? I have looked at the following:
Preferences, Advanced, Offline storage: and it is set to "use up to 0MB of space for the cache"
Also, if I look at the properties for the /root/.mozilla directories it shows overall size as 3006k. Lean and mean.

I like this 4.15 more each time I use it.

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mikeb
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#13 Post by mikeb »

hmm prefs.js i suppose has the majority of changes..... but I would normally just use the whole profile folder...a newer firefox would simply update it to match but many of the savings would still apply.

Those oversized sqlite files are where then newest increases have come from... I found I could vacuum them a bit but there is a lack of control of their starting size where changing that would mean building from source as far as I could tell.. Apparently its to speed up data base access when looking up where you browsed to 5 years ago...all a bit of a joke really and funny how opera was still doing this using a tiny text file as FF used to do.

Glad you like some of my tweaks brought to you by the tightest techno arse on the web :D

There was a thread a while ago about tweaks to browsers to try and reduce ads and snooping... more handy info... this forum is full of it...

mike

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greengeek
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#14 Post by greengeek »

mikeb wrote:Glad you like some of my tweaks brought to you by the tightest techno arse on the web :D
Damn straight. And i tell you what - it's got the sweetest media player ever. Some kind of blend of vlc and xine. I'd post a pic but you forgot to include mtPaint or any other method of screenshotting so far as I can tell. (haven't got my license yet - still learning how to drive this thing) :-)

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mikeb
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#15 Post by mikeb »

ah ha...lol .... yeah a handy button would be a good idea...

The long way around is to fire up the GIMP and then you have aquire and screen shot option which is quite flexible .... that windows print screen copy to clipboard thingy is a handy number I miss..

I nicked the xine bluton skin and ported it to vlc using their great skin editor... its a bit addictive so beware. If you check out the other skins you might find a familiar face. By the way I also found a xmms skin for mplayer... another one to confuse :)

Off topic but who cares :D

mike

Les Kerf
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#16 Post by Les Kerf »

Flash wrote: ... Did you left-click the hairy eyeball in Rox before you looked in the session folder on the CD, so the hidden files and folders show?
AHA! That's what I was overlooking :oops: Yes, there is definitely more stuff in those directories.
Flash wrote: ...I've read that there is a lot more overhead (basically, wasted space) used saving a session on a CD than there is on a DVD, but 50 MB?...
I will try making another live DVD and see how it behaves. By making the changes suggested by rufwoof the save folder is "only" 17 MB, which still seems pretty large. According to Gdmap it is almost entirely composed of Firefox stuff.

I did try the same thing using Precise Puppy 5.7.1 (Seamonkey) and it also makes a save folder of about 17 MB.
EdD wrote: Les, assuming that your laptop will boot from a usb drive, the solution may be to create a dedicated 16G usb drive for your Slacko installation.
Thanks for the tip; I do have several puppies on USB drives and they perform well, I do have a preference for the placebo security effect provided by a live CD while on the internet.
greengeek wrote: Hi Les, once you have sorted the problem to your satisfaction could you post back and list specifically the changes you made to achieve the result? I am just getting to understand the problems with firefox cache and am keen to get it sorted on a pup i am building. cheers
I followed the suggestions from rufwoof exactly.
rufwoof wrote: Open root and (assuming ROX) click the eye icon (to show all files) and right click .mozilla folder/directory and select PROPERTIES. That will provide a indication of how much space Firefox might be eating. And/Or it might be under /root/.cache

In Firefox EDIT, PREFERENCES, select the ADVANCED tab and click on the NETWORK sub-tab. Click the two CLEAR choices (assuming you're OK with that) and then check (tick) the override cache management box and enter 0 (zero) in the Limit Cache box.

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