Root filesystem ran out of room in F11-on-XO1

[Mikus Grinbergs]

Disclaimer:  I am not asking for help;  I am sharing my experience.

Was running a large 'yum' update to an XO1 with os11 installed -- it
failed, because 'yum' ran out of room in the '/' filesystem.  I looked,
and it turned out that before this 'yum' run started, /dev/mtdblock0 had
been nearly 90% "used".  [For conveniences sake, because '/' is 1GB,
I'll say 10% of '/' is about 100MB (that disregards jffs2
"packing").]

For comparison, I have a not-used-for-testing XO1 with os10 installed --
its '/' filesystem shows "used" a bit over 50%.  The near 40%
difference
in "how much was used" between the two systems comes out to over 400MB.
[ os11.zd did come with more facilities installed than did os10.zd ]

The amount of software I had added myself was approximately equal for
those os11 and os10 systems.  Let us assume that I had filled some 100MB
of the os11 system's space with "leftovers" from my testing.  That still
leaves the os11 system with 300MB plus of "occupancy" to be accounted
for.  My suspicion is that the major part of this difference in '/'
filesystem "used" is attributable to directory  /versions  in os11.


If my suspicion is correct, then the "ease of use" of olpc-update (which
depends upon /versions) needs to be balanced against the potential for
"shock" if the XO-1 user "runs out of room in the XO1" that much
sooner.

mikus



p.s.
A partial printout from 'du' on the two systems:

>          Directory       os11        os10
>  
>          /bin            6475        6474
>          /etc           39513       39455
>          /lib           36428       28144
>          /tmp               0           0 
>          /var           35012       36009 
>          /boot           9319        9308
>          /home         122330       44500
>          /sbin          12722       12714
>          /security        140         140
>          /bootpart          0           0
>          /usr          964111      868882 
>          /versions     925311 
I have no idea why /usr came out so big - I had told 'du' not to follow
symbolic links.  [Note that the numbers for /usr alone are in the
vicinity of the size of the whole /dev/mtdblock0 device -- does jffs2
"packing" account for this ?]

Also, /versions has lots of cross-links, which 'du' might have counted
as though they were separate files.

Update methods (Was: Root filesystem ran out of room in F11-on-XO1)

[Bernie Innocenti]

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 18:13 -0600, Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
>  If my suspicion is correct, then the "ease of use" of
> olpc-update (which
>  depends upon /versions) needs to be balanced against the potential for
>  "shock" if the XO-1 user "runs out of room in the XO1" that much
> sooner. 
I'm afraid that olpc-update will never become usable in the general
case. I find it hard to believe that users will be willing to sacrifice
~500MB of their flash to accommodate updates. In the field, it's a lot
faster to flash a new image from USB and then restore the journal from
backup.

Today I found out that Esteban, a Ceibal developer, has been working on
a "backup to USB" patch for the Journal.

In Paraguay, we've been using two simple shell scripts to save and
restore the journal across upgrades, but a proper UI would definitely
simplify things for the technicians.

-- 
   // Bernie Innocenti - http://codewiz.org/
 \X/  Sugar Labs       - http://sugarlabs.org/

[Steven M. Parrish]

On Wednesday 24 February 2010 07:13:22 pm Mikus Grinbergs wrote:
>  Disclaimer:  I am not asking for help;  I am sharing my experience.
>  
>  Was running a large 'yum' update to an XO1 with os11 installed -- it
>  failed, because 'yum' ran out of room in the '/' filesystem.  I looked,
>  and it turned out that before this 'yum' run started, /dev/mtdblock0 had
>  been nearly 90% "used".  [For conveniences sake, because '/' is 1GB,
>  I'll say 10% of '/' is about 100MB (that disregards jffs2
> "packing").]
>  
>  For comparison, I have a not-used-for-testing XO1 with os10 installed --
>  its '/' filesystem shows "used" a bit over 50%.  The near 40%
> difference
>  in "how much was used" between the two systems comes out to over 400MB.
>  [ os11.zd did come with more facilities installed than did os10.zd ]
>  
>  The amount of software I had added myself was approximately equal for
>  those os11 and os10 systems.  Let us assume that I had filled some 100MB
>  of the os11 system's space with "leftovers" from my testing.  That still
>  leaves the os11 system with 300MB plus of "occupancy" to be accounted
>  for.  My suspicion is that the major part of this difference in '/'
>  filesystem "used" is attributable to directory  /versions  in os11.
>  
>  
>  If my suspicion is correct, then the "ease of use" of olpc-update (which
>  depends upon /versions) needs to be balanced against the potential for
>  "shock" if the XO-1 user "runs out of room in the XO1" that much
> sooner.
>  
>  mikus
>  
>  
>  
>  p.s.
>  
>  A partial printout from 'du' on the two systems:
>  >         Directory       os11        os10
>  >         
>  >         /bin            6475        6474
>  >         /etc           39513       39455
>  >         /lib           36428       28144
>  >         /tmp               0           0
>  >         /var           35012       36009
>  >         /boot           9319        9308
>  >         /home         122330       44500
>  >         /sbin          12722       12714
>  >         /security        140         140
>  >         /bootpart          0           0
>  >         /usr          964111      868882
>  >         /versions     925311
>  
>  I have no idea why /usr came out so big - I had told 'du' not to follow
>  symbolic links.  [Note that the numbers for /usr alone are in the
>  vicinity of the size of the whole /dev/mtdblock0 device -- does jffs2
>  "packing" account for this ?]
>  
>  Also, /versions has lots of cross-links, which 'du' might have counted
>  as though they were separate files.
>  
>  _______________________________________________
>  olpc mailing list
>  olpc(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/olpc 
This is something I noticed when creating OS11.  The resulting build was much 
larger however I attributed it to the new build system and inclusion of 
additional apps.  I have just started working on OS12 and will do some digging 
to get the size back down.

Steven

-- 
 =====================================================
 Steven M. Parrish

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 gpg fingerprint: 4B6C 8357 059E B7ED 8095 0FD6 1F4B EDA0 A9A6 13C0
 http://tuxbrewr.fedorapeople.org/
 irc.freenode.net: 
Nickname: SMParrish 
Channels: #fedora-kde, #fedora-olpc, #fedora-edu, #sugar, #packagekit