Re: Using flash memory for my linux installation

On Mon, Aug 06, 2001 at 11:32:18PM -0700, Ian Clarke wrote:
> I have a 256MB flash card on a iPAQ on which I just installed Familiar
> Linux. Unfortunately space seems to be rather limited, preventing me
> from installing the QPE interface.

You look like you installed the ``complete'' image.. if you want to
use QPE, you might consider just installing ``bootstrap'' or removing
your existing X and Python packages.

> When I do a "df" I get:
>
> Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Mounted on
> /dev/ntdblock/3 15360 14352 1008 /
> ramfs 15468 14996 14998 /mnt/ramfs
>
> I should have 32MB ram and a 16MB rom on my iPAQ. I assume that this
> has been split in two, into my root filesystem and a ramdisk.

Your 16 MB of flash (minus the first couple of flash sectors; root is the
4th partition), is populated by a JFFS2 image. Compression (among other
things) is handled for reads and writes on the fly.. it's your primary
persisent storage.

That mounted RAMfs is like a RAMdisk, but writes into Linux's file-system
buffers, instead of hogging a static amount of RAM. The number you're
seeing aloted to you is a percentage of installed RAM (e.g. 32 MB)...

They are just different media.. used for different things..

> My question is: Can I move part or all of the filesystem on to the
> 256MB flash card to make more room for installing things such as QPE?

Depending on constraints, you can move parts. I wouldn't recommend
moving around anything in ``/'', but most of ``/usr'' can be relocated.

Alexander
Received on Tue Aug 07 2001 - 01:31:15 EDT