Set of ready-made pupsave and swap files,

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Mike7
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Re: Swap does not work on USB pendrives..

#31 Post by Mike7 »

musher0 wrote:For regular use (i.e. catching the overrun from RAM), they work fine and perform as well as swap partitions
On a pendrive, one of the two must be better (faster) than the other. I haven't looked inside your swap files, but off the top of my head addressing to a swap file could be more difficult than addressing to a partition because, unlike a partition, the file has no fixed memory location (the pendrive controller has to search). No?

M.
Carolite-1.2 w/FF38 on bootable 16G flash drive; Asus eeePC 1000HA, Atom CPU, 2G RAM, 160G HDD.

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#32 Post by musher0 »

Good point.

I don't know technically how pendrives are addressed. I know from
experience that on a hard drive it's true. On the pendrive I've used it on,
I didn't notice a difference between the two.

IMO, the important thing to remember is that, when the system starts
using the swapfile, you always notice a performance hit because disk
access is what, 100 times slower than RAM access? And a slow system
is no fun... We obviously need some swap space to avoid a system
freeze, but we still try to avoid getting to the point where it gets used.

BFN.

musher0

~~~~~~~~~
PS. As a note, maybe you've heard of the f2fs file system for pendrives?
Here's an article that's not too technical.

You use f2fs on a flash|thumb|pen-drive instead of ext2 or vfat or udf.
Prolongs the life of your pendrive. There should be a pet for the f2fs
utilities, if your Puppy doesn't have them already in /sbin as mkfs.f2fs,
in /usr/lib as libf2fs, etc.

Ref. on micko's blog
And here's a copy of the f2fs-tools-1.4:
-- https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr ... f2fs-tools --
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#33 Post by Mike7 »

musher0 wrote:when the system starts using the swapfile, you always notice a performance hit because disk access is what, 100 times slower than RAM access? And a slow system is no fun.
Don't I know it. I'm fighting a slow system all the time with Carolite-1.2 on a pendrive. I still don't know what's causing it. I've tested by booting pfix=ram and pfix=nocopy, but nothing seems to make a difference. Maybe Firefox38 is just too heavy for Carolite, I don't know, and it's driving me nuts. And why is my save file 537Mb? No idea, nor what to do about it all. If you have any ideas, they would be most appreciated.
We obviously need some swap space to avoid a system freeze
I just suffered a system freeze while watching a video in Firefox and had to do a hard poweroff. Lost all my additions to bookmarks. I hate it when that happens. Time lost.

It could have been because I sill don't have a swap file or partiton. I was waiting to ask you: Can I format a swap partition in that 3rd, unallocated, 1.25Gb partition even though the pendrive has already had Carolite installed on it? Formatting an unallocated partition won't mess with the partiton table or the MBR? Also: if the 3rd partiton can be formatted as a swapfile, should I do it while in another OS so that the Carolite pendrive isn't mounted? Or is it OK so long as the new partition isn't mounted? (Sorry to sound like a boob but I'm pretty new to partitions and formatting.)
maybe you've heard of the f2fs file system for pendrives?
I did read about it somewhere, but I thought it was too experimental and maybe wouldn't support all of Puppy Linux's files. (Unless it's been perfected since that Samsung article was written.)
There should be a pet for the f2fs utilities, if your Puppy doesn't have them already in /sbin as mkfs.f2fs, in /usr/lib as libf2fs, etc
.
I did a search for anything with "f2fs" and came up dry. But the Package Manager says that the Carolina repo has f2fs-tools-1.2.0-i486.pet. Would I use that or v.1.4 in the archlinux repo? (Being new to all this, I'm hesitant to use .pets that weren't adapted specifically for my OS.)

But is it really okay to install a Puppy, say Carolite, on f2fs? Are the f2fs tools all that's needed to make everything work right? What about all those weird Puppy system files and the terminal commands?

Anyway, my immediate chore is making that swap partition and seeing if it helps things. Plus if you have any suggestions about Carolite's slowness (or my excessively large save file, or the ff38 question).

Sorry to burden you with all my problems, but I've gotten bogged down with Carolite just like I did with Puppeee-4.4. I find Puppies that I like, but there's always something important that doesn't work and I can't fix. It seems like the developers went from one Puppy to the other without ever perfecting any of them, leaving them all half-finished, like broken toys.

Frisbee in Carolite is a good example of this. It's posterior to Pwireless2 but doesn't have Pwireless2's functionality, and actually doesn't even work right (no way to switch wifi connections without deleting the current profile). The only advance of Frisbee over Pwireless2 was that it resolves the more recent WPA keys. Carolite has certain improvements over Puppeee-4.4, but other things like Frisbee slipped backwards.

But if you will help me out here a little more with Carolite, maybe I can get it to work for me.

Cheers.

Mike
Carolite-1.2 w/FF38 on bootable 16G flash drive; Asus eeePC 1000HA, Atom CPU, 2G RAM, 160G HDD.

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#34 Post by musher0 »

Hello, Mike7.

Yes you may format your unallocated 1.25Gb on your pendrive as swap.
You use Gparted to do it.

But first: don't you have a hard drive on your machine? Unless you have
to be entirely portable -- meaning: you don't have a computer of your
own, and you always use a friend's computer or one at the public library
--, I'd check if the HD on your computer already has a swap partition.

Judging from your video incident, I'd say your problem may be one of
browser cache as well. But one thing at a time please.

First check if you already have a swap partition somewhere on your
computer by typing

Code: Select all

swapon -s
in a terminal, and tell us the results below.

We'll deal with the browser cache later.

Finally, to be fair, for all things Carolina, forum member Geoffrey is your
man. I've never used Carolina, so I can't help you with any specifics.

BFN.

musher0
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#35 Post by Mike7 »

Hi, musher0.

I got a little hung up there with the forum server switch, but at least I learned how nscd works <grin>.
Yes you may format your unallocated 1.25Gb on your pendrive as swap.You use Gparted to do it.
Okay, did that, and it seems to have worked:

Code: Select all

# free
                    total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:       1024388      462688      561700            0      24676
-/+ buffers:                438012       586376
Swap:      1048572            0         1048572
# 
don't you have a hard drive on your machine?
Yes, but the basic reason for swtching from Windows on the HDD to Puppy on a pendrive is to use the HDD as little as possible. It's old and on its last legs. I've had a couple of HDD failures in the past, on other machines, and I want to avoid it happening again.
Judging from your video incident, I'd say your problem may be one of browser cache as well.
Quite possibly. I reduced the cache (in Preferences) to 50Mb, but that may still be too much. And I wonder what the consecuences of having too little cache are.
for all things Carolina, forum member Geoffrey is your man.
I haven't been able to snag his attention for some reason. Maybe he can't be bothered with my irritating newbie questions <grin>.

Mike
Carolite-1.2 w/FF38 on bootable 16G flash drive; Asus eeePC 1000HA, Atom CPU, 2G RAM, 160G HDD.

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#36 Post by musher0 »

Hi, Mike7.

That's great! Congratulations! :D

About your HD: that's a wise solution, given the age of your HD.

Now to tackle the browser cache problem.
-- I read through your messages and you don't seem to indicate what
browser you're using. So I'll give an example using a mozilla-type
browser (i.e. Firefox, Seamonkey). But the concept is the same if you
have Opera or PaleMoon.

First, open your /root folder with your ROX-Filer.
__ In your /root folder you should have a folder named ".mozilla".

Second, again with your ROX-Filer, open the disk & folder where you
have your pupsave_xyz.sfs.
__ You now have two ROX windows open.

Third, move the ".mozilla" folder in the first ROX window alongside
your pupsave_xyz.sfs in the second ROX window.
__ (Second option in the ROX sub-menu)

Fourth, once the move is finished, bring the ".mozilla" folder back as a
"absolute symlink" to where is was in your /root folder.
__ (Fourth and last option in the ROX sub-menu)

That's it.

Now you can give your web browser 100 Mg's of cache again: the cache
will be directly on your pendrive, not in the pupsave file. No danger now
of choking your pupsave file when viewing a movie on youtube, for ex.

I hope that helps. Bye for now.

musher0
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#37 Post by Mike7 »

musher0-
you don't seem to indicate what browser you're using.
Firefox 38.0.5.
First, open your /root folder with your ROX-Filer.
I could be wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any ROX-filer in Carolite-1.2. The file manager is Thunar.
In your /root folder you should have a folder named ".mozilla".
Yes.
Second, again with your ROX-Filer, open the disk & folder where you have your pupsave_xyz.sfs.
/mnt/home/carolite>carolitesave.2fs
Third, move the ".mozilla" folder. . . alongside
your pupsave_xyz.sfs in the second ROX window.
There is an entry in the context menu for "move to", and it brings up a save window called "YAD". Is this different from a simple copy-and-paste?
Fourth, once the move is finished, bring the ".mozilla" folder back as a "absolute symlink" to where is was in your /root folder.
There's a symlink entry but no absolute symlink. Is that OK?
Now you can give your web browser 100 Mg's of cache again: the cache will be directly on your pendrive, not in the pupsave file. No danger now of choking your pupsave file when viewing a movie on youtube, for ex.
This is a little confusing. Are files from applications continuously copied into the pupsave file? Or are the system files like .mozilla actually being read from the pupsave file? This question also gets back to the question of whether or not Puppy is being run from RAM (in which case the apps would have to be copied to the pupsave file; and if I only do a Save at shutdown, what's the difference?

Mike
Carolite-1.2 w/FF38 on bootable 16G flash drive; Asus eeePC 1000HA, Atom CPU, 2G RAM, 160G HDD.

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#38 Post by musher0 »

Hello, Mike7.

Sorry if I'm going to be a little dry. Someone on another thread is trying
to defend a really bad script, and it's really irritated me.

No ROX? Thunar only? Ouch.

In any case, try to follow the instructions I gave you as best you can.

I know there's not much of a difference in practice between a regular
symlink and an absolute symlink, so go for a regular symlink.

YAD I don't know.

The answer to your questions in your last paragraph is : both!

What I'm having you do with this "move-and-bring-back" technique is a
hybrid between the regular pupsave file and the "folder" pupsave. You'll
have part of your Puppy in the pupsave file and a couple of folders in the
general Puppy folder.

And it may or may not respect the principle of running Puppy all in RAM.
Depending on your amount of RAM, your Puppy may run half from RAM,
half from disk.

(Me, grumbling: :)
"And frankly, I don't care much about theories: what I know is that the
hybrid technique above works! Stop being finicky about it and apply it!
You'll see!

[grumble] Now the man is not using a run-of-the-mill Puppy. [grumble]
No ROX. [grumble] I'll really have seen everything in my lifetime!") :twisted:

Sorry for the tone. :) BFN.

musher0 out
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#39 Post by Mike7 »

musher0-
Someone on another thread is trying to defend a really bad script, and it's really irritated me.
Try not to take it personally.
No ROX? Thunar only? Ouch.
Carolite is very pared-down.
I know there's not much of a difference in practice between a regular symlink and an absolute symlink, so go for a regular symlink.
What's an absolute symlink?
YAD I don't know.
It's a builtin. The Package Manager says "GUI frontend for shell scripts", whatever that means.

Seriously, though, is "move to" different from copy-and-paste? If so, how?
The answer to your questions in your last paragraph is : both!
Oh, no.
What I'm having you do with this "move-and-bring-back" technique is a
hybrid between the regular pupsave file and the "folder" pupsave. You'll
have part of your Puppy in the pupsave file and a couple of folders in the
general Puppy folder.
Understood.
And it may or may not respect the principle of running Puppy all in RAM.
Depending on your amount of RAM, your Puppy may run half from RAM,
half from disk.
Sure. Why not?
I don't care much about theories: what I know is that the
hybrid technique above works! Stop being finicky about it and apply it!
You'll see!
It's actually not new to me. When I was fooling around putting Linux distros on single-partition pendrives, I would put all my personal files into a "MyFiles" folder next to the SFSs in /mnt/home. Otherwise they would go straight into the savefile and end up clogging RAM up unnecesarily.
Now the man is not using a run-of-the-mill Puppy. . .
No ROX. . . I'll really have seen everything in my lifetime!
Variety is the spice of life. But, blame the Carolite developers. It is a pretty weird Puppy, in all respects. As someone in another thread said, it doesn't even look like a Puppy. And you can copy, cut, and paste files from the context menu, just like in Windows, which is un-Puppy-like (or at least un-Puppeee-like).
Sorry for the tone.
Not at all. I am amused.

Mike
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#40 Post by mikeb »

You could alter the profiles.ini file in the home folder of firefox to point to wherever you like so avoiding symlinks and then just copy and paste.

eg
IsRelative=1
Path=preset.default

change to 0 an then put in whatever path you want and move the folder to there.

Otherwis e the command is
ln -s /path/to/source/folder /path/to/symlink

soo you have first parameter as new home and second as original mozilla profile.

My oddball pups load entirely to ram including save but if you have a polluting browser then thats not going to help much..If you want the latest and greatest you get the fattest and largest profiles plus flash may be steaming to ram with the later versions depending on the cache config..I lost track of how much ram you have though any swap space would add to the save space...ie with a 512MB machine I have 512MB swap which gives a total of around 750MB working save space.

In spite of a comment about my mentioning this I am getting no notifications since the server change so may not reply so promptly.

mike

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#41 Post by Mike7 »

mikeb-
You could alter the profiles.ini file in the home folder of firefox to point to wherever you like so avoiding symlinks and then just copy and paste.

eg
IsRelative=1
Path=preset.default

change to 0 an then put in whatever path you want and move the folder to there.

Otherwise the command is
ln -s /path/to/source/folder /path/to/symlink

soo you have first parameter as new home and second as original mozilla profile.
Thanks muchly. Very useful info.

Question: ln --help says "Create hard links by default, symbolic links with --symbolic." Now, what is the real difference? Can you explain?
My oddball pups load entirely to ram including save
Is that why around 450Mb of my RAM is in use right after booting with no apps running?
If you want the latest and greatest you get the fattest and largest profiles
Yes, Firefox 38 wasn't meant to run in my system, I don't think. I was not happy when the builtin FF26 updated automatically to v.38.
plus flash may be steaming to ram with the later versions depending on the cache config.
That's why I installed flashplayer-10, hoping it would take up less space than v.11.
I lost track of how much ram you have
1Gb. Soon to increase to 2Gb.
though any swap space would add to the save space.
Really. I didn't know that. I wonder how it works.

I presently have a 1Gb Linux-swap partition on the pendrive. It hasn't increased the OS speed, but at least it doesn't freeze up any more when I get to full RAM.
with a 512MB machine I have 512MB swap which gives a total of around 750MB working save space.
How the heck does the savefile split itself between RAM and swap?
In spite of a comment about my mentioning this I am getting no notifications since the server change so may not reply so promptly.
Uh-oh. That's a serious problem. I'm getting notifications again. I wonder what went wrong for you.

Mike
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#42 Post by Mike7 »

mikeb, musher0-

Do either of you guys know which Firefox configurtion settings should be changed to reduce FF's memory usage? I figure there must be at least some of the "about:config Search: cache" settings that ought to be altered, but which ones?

Mike
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#43 Post by mikeb »

Not sure but hardlinks are like the ones in windows and are added to the file system index ..... symbolic links are like file entries in effect.... but thats just my limited knowledge...on linux I always use the symbolic.

Well when the save space....the read write layer of the union ... is in ram...any increase in ram space even in swap is included if that makes sense.

450mb from where?..I find free does not give a useful figure ...I prefer htop.
Ram space used by sfs and read/write tmpfs is not shown by a memory usage figure...it MAY be included in the free space monitor but thats working quite differently.

flash 10.0.15 definitely does not stream to ram... 10.3.xx definitly does... 10.1.xxx....not sure...so not all version 10 flashplayers are the same....if you get the video in /tmp its not going directly to ram...but then it could still be using ram in a tmpfs.
Gone crosseyed yet?
A mp4 downloader is a MUCH better idea for long videos.

Firefox settings..one to google since it changes with versions so there is no one definitive answer. Though in real term ram usage its the cache, browsing history and urlclassifier stuff you need to control.

yes still no notifications...I will have to contact flash.

mike

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#44 Post by musher0 »

Mike7 wrote:mikeb, musher0-

Do either of you guys know which Firefox configurtion settings should be
changed to reduce FF's memory usage? I figure there must be at least
some of the "about:config Search: cache" settings that ought to be
altered, but which ones?

Mike
Hi, Mike7.

I'm not a FF user myself, but maybe the following from the Fox's mouth, :)
no less, will help you:

-- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fi ... memory-ram --
(Taken from here.)

BFN.

musher0
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#45 Post by Mike7 »

mikeb-
flash 10.0.15 definitely does not stream to ram... 10.3.xx definitly does.
10.3.xx is the one I've got. I guess it was the only v10 available as a Carolina pet. Now not even that one is available (at least not in the archive.org Carolina repo). If you know where there is a version 10.0.xxx that will run on Carolina or any Puppy, please let me know. Downloading mp4 conversions of videos is really not much of an option. It takes too long. Even downloading mp3 music tracks doesn't always complete.
Firefox settings..one to google since it changes with versions so there is no one definitive answer. Though in real term ram usage its the cache, browsing history and urlclassifier stuff you need to control.
Thanks. I will google this.
still no notifications
That would be frustrating. I belonged to a health forum for many years and got involved there on a personal level with a lot of people. Suddenly one day the email notifications stopped, and they were never fixed. That was enough to ruin a whole bunch of important long-term relationships for me and hundreds of others. Forum admins don't always realize the effects of what they do. But I'm sure the guys at murga-linux will eventually fix your notifications problem.

Mike
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#46 Post by Mike7 »

musher0-
maybe the following from the Fox's mouth, :)
no less, will help you:
Thanks. Some of those URLs were helpful, although none of them went into the caches in about:config. Plus I have read that hardware acceleration causes erratic video behavior.

All this browser stuff has gotten completely out of hand, IMHO.

Mike
Carolite-1.2 w/FF38 on bootable 16G flash drive; Asus eeePC 1000HA, Atom CPU, 2G RAM, 160G HDD.

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#47 Post by musher0 »

Indeed. QupZilla is a sports car compared to the mega-trucks the major
browsers have now become.

BFN.

musher0
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#48 Post by Mike7 »

musher0-
Indeed. QupZilla is a sports car compared to the mega-trucks the major browsers have now become.
Between hackers finding new security holes and website designers exploiting to the maximum every bell and whistle that comes along, browsers are just gonna keep getting more and more unmanageable.

Maybe this is some corollary to Murphy's Law. The Internet itself appears to have self-destruction built in. And that goes for many aspects of current technology. Not everything that appears to be a great invention works out in the long run.

For the moment, though, a temporary solution for me probably means Slimboat or Opera plus the gtk youtube viewer.

Mike
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#49 Post by musher0 »

Wise choice! :)
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#50 Post by mikeb »

mp4 downloader addons are by far the easiest option if thats what you want. You don't even need a flash plugin or html5 to use those and you have total control over what happens to the download.

I realised the other day it seems google is the current internet mangler now.

The javascript apis and related css which they lob around for free are pushing their browser and all that entails. (the 'free' Internet explorer in windows 98 was basically meant to do the same thing plus put any competition out of business...which it did.) If you don't bend to their whim then you might just get a blank web page where there used to be content...had a couple recently and even the latest mozilla would still not render....

In short google have made their attempt to take over the internet in a similar style to that of Microsoft...but a bit more polished about it ... its more pronounced with android but the idea of if you want you tube TV you buy one of these....and by the way other sites with video will work badly :D And sod any web standards of course.

Its about market control and not technology advancement.
Big browsers are partitally about trying to keep up with such crap.
Or dig yer heels in and leave them to it....

All fun and games...for them...

mike

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