[Fedora-livecd-list] "Input/output error" and/or "Bus error" for most commands

[James Heather]

> Is there a way to implement an artificial capacity limit that would
> prevent processes from exhausting the overlay so that the reserve
> might be used for recording the event and rebooting back to a safer
> state? 

The easiest way is to play with the partition size (set in your
kickstart file). There are two things that can stop a file being
written: either the overlay is full, or the filesystem is full. If you
set the partition size to a smaller value, you'll get filesystem errors,
which are probably going to be less severe.

Of course, if you have a small partition size and a huge overlay, then
most of your overlay will not ever be usable, so you want to play with
the two things together. As a rough idea, the free space in your
partition (after everything's been installed) should be a bit less than
the overlay size.

There are potential pitfalls here, because free filesystem space doesn't
quite equate with free overlay space. I don't know what happens if you
boot up and delete a large file that was installed in the squashfs--it
might increase the free space as far as the filesystem is concerned, but
it obviously won't buy you any extra overlay space.

James