Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

bruisedquasar08 · Last edited by bruisedquasar08 on Fri 22 Jul 2011, 08:01; edited 1 time in total

I couldn't get Puppy (FatDog64 version) installed on USB flash, to boot in an Acer 722 (with the new AMD C-50 & ATI 6250 graphics), so I tried installing the ISO with Unebootin. It worked.

Question. I notice the drive led goes on and off a lot making me wonder whether Puppy is loading and running from RAM. I tried entering
pfix=ram at boot but I get a message that it cannot find the fatdog-64fs file .I checked the drive The file is there.

I also removed the drive and tried to open ABI Word. ABI opened & it opened right away. Can anyone tell me whether Puppy is loading to RAM as it is made to do? I'm concern I'm not getting one of the basic advantages of Puppy, namely minimalized read\writes to flash.

A reason Puppy is my favorite Linux for laptops is the much reduced wear & tear on flash dives. Other distros use flash like a hard drive.
2 GB flash is cheap but crashes are not inexpensive.

Bruce B · Posted: Fri 22 Jul 2011, 07:06 Post subject:

The pupsave file doesn't copy to RAM

The writes to the flash media are however reduced because the write data is buffered in RAM. It writes at specified intervals. The user can adjust the intervals.

~

Flash · Posted: Fri 22 Jul 2011, 08:50 Post subject:

In any case, your worries about quickly wearing out the flash drive are probably unfounded. From what I've been able to find out, flash memory locations begin to "wear out" after 100,000 to a million erase/write cycles. Wear-out failure mode of a flash drive should be a gradual increase in read errors, which are correctable up to a point. The controller in the flash drive spreads out the use in order to maximize the life of the drive. Given normal use, your drive should last many years before read errors begin, and its built-in error-correction gives you time to replace it before you lose any data. The question is, how do you know when read errors occur? I think some flash drives have a reporting mechanism.

darkcity · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 2215 Location: near here

I've had a couple of flash drive that got corrupted. My advice would be to backup anything you keep on flash.

Also I was using Puppy totally on USB but I need a swap-file. I've heard its a bad idea to have a swap file on USB.

Flash · Posted: Fri 22 Jul 2011, 09:42 Post subject:

It's true, anything can be corrupted. That's a much bigger subject than the wear-out mode of failure I was talking about. But you're right, it's always a good idea to make a copy.

As for using a flash drive for a swap file or partition, where did you hear it was a bad idea? All you're doing is spreading rumors. Where's the test data, or at least a report from someone who tried it? As you may know, Windows 7 provides for using a flash drive as a page file (the same thing as swap in Linux.) Of course, just because Windows does it doesn't mean it's a good idea. Laughing

Béèm · Posted: Fri 22 Jul 2011, 14:03 Post subject:

Several people have brought to attention that using a swap on a flashdrive will wear it more rapidly due to the more frequent access to it compared to normal usage.

Looks perfectly plausible to me.
But indeed there is no precise data about it.