Running Linux on a flash drive

[mjwestkamper]

I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk.

To avoid the write-cycle limits on the flash it must be configured without a
swap drive and remove any extraneous logging. I have eliminated the swap
partition, however I am not sure what logs are created and how to eliminate
them or direct them to /dev/nul. The objective is not to beat the flash to
death since there is a 1 million write cycle limit.

I am also trying to make the kernel static, w/o modules, to keep the speed
up as the flash is slow. Here my attempts have been less that acceptable. I
constantly get errors on the build and can't seem to eliminate all the
modules.

Finally, to use some sort of sleep mode to avoid the re-boot delay on the
re-application of power. Once developed the system will not ever see any
different configuration. Here I can't find much information on how to do
this.

Any pointers on any of these subjects will be greatly appreciated. If not
already done, I will gladly post a HOW-TO when done.

Mike

[dalen]

Mike Westkamper wrote:

>  I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk. 
Mike,
	You might want to look at http://www.handhelds.org/
Thanks,

Dale

[Andy Green]

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On Monday 30 August 2004 20:01, Mike Westkamper wrote:
>  I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk. 
Cool project... but you will need a 512MB minimum I would think.

>  To avoid the write-cycle limits on the flash it must be configured
> without
>  a swap drive and remove any extraneous logging. I have eliminated the swap
>  partition, however I am not sure what logs are created and how to eliminate
>  them or direct them to /dev/nul. The objective is not to beat the flash to
>  death since there is a 1 million write cycle limit. 
The one way I know would work is to create a small ramdisk during init and use 
mount --bind to mount it over /var/log

>  I am also trying to make the kernel static, w/o modules, to keep the
> speed
>  up as the flash is slow. Here my attempts have been less that acceptable. I
>  constantly get errors on the build and can't seem to eliminate all the
>  modules. 
Are you sure that loading a few modules is going to make the slightest bit of 
noticeable difference?

>  Finally, to use some sort of sleep mode to avoid the re-boot delay on
> the
>  re-application of power. Once developed the system will not ever see any
>  different configuration. Here I can't find much information on how to do
>  this. 
ACPI handles this on modern systems, but it is really cranky about which BIOS 
you have.

>  Any pointers on any of these subjects will be greatly appreciated. If
> not
>  already done, I will gladly post a HOW-TO when done. 
- -Andy

- -- 
Automatic actions for USB cameras, cardreaders, memory sticks, MP3 players
http://warmcat.com/usbautocam
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[David Martin]

You are in for a long haul starting from FC2, it was not designed for this.
When I need a static image (like for a flash disk), I start with LFS
(http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/).

Its pretty easy and you learn alot.
I even created a version that never writes to flash (uses ramdisks).

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:01:18 -0400, Mike Westkamper
<mjwestkamper(a)weiinc.com&gt; wrote:
>  
>  I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk.
>  
>  To avoid the write-cycle limits on the flash it must be configured without a
>  swap drive and remove any extraneous logging. I have eliminated the swap
>  partition, however I am not sure what logs are created and how to eliminate
>  them or direct them to /dev/nul. The objective is not to beat the flash to
>  death since there is a 1 million write cycle limit.
>  
>  I am also trying to make the kernel static, w/o modules, to keep the speed
>  up as the flash is slow. Here my attempts have been less that acceptable. I
>  constantly get errors on the build and can't seem to eliminate all the
>  modules.
>  
>  Finally, to use some sort of sleep mode to avoid the re-boot delay on the
>  re-application of power. Once developed the system will not ever see any
>  different configuration. Here I can't find much information on how to do
>  this.
>  
>  Any pointers on any of these subjects will be greatly appreciated. If not
>  already done, I will gladly post a HOW-TO when done.
>  
>  Mike
>  
>  --
>  fedora-list mailing list
>  fedora-list(a)redhat.com
>  To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>   

-- 
--
David L. Martin
Roving: dlmarti(a)gmail.com
Home:  kc2lcf(a)arrl.net
Work:   dlmarti(a)accusort.com

[mjwestkamper]

Good point - FC2, etc is pointed to the desktop/server market.

Did you find a way to restart with re-boot?




-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-list-bounces(a)redhat.com
[mailto:[e-mail]]On Behalf Of David Martin
Sent: Monday, August 30, 2004 3:27 PM
To: For users of Fedora Core releases
Subject: Re: Running Linux on a flash drive


You are in for a long haul starting from FC2, it was not designed for this.
When I need a static image (like for a flash disk), I start with LFS
(http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/).

Its pretty easy and you learn alot.
I even created a version that never writes to flash (uses ramdisks).

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:01:18 -0400, Mike Westkamper
<mjwestkamper(a)weiinc.com&gt; wrote:
>  I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk.
>
>  To avoid the write-cycle limits on the flash it must be configured without 
a
>  swap drive and remove any extraneous logging. I have eliminated the
> swap
>  partition, however I am not sure what logs are created and how to 
eliminate
>  them or direct them to /dev/nul. The objective is not to beat the
> flash to
>  death since there is a 1 million write cycle limit.
>
>  I am also trying to make the kernel static, w/o modules, to keep the speed
>  up as the flash is slow. Here my attempts have been less that acceptable. 
I
>  constantly get errors on the build and can't seem to eliminate
> all the
>  modules.
>
>  Finally, to use some sort of sleep mode to avoid the re-boot delay on the
>  re-application of power. Once developed the system will not ever see any
>  different configuration. Here I can't find much information on how to do
>  this.
>
>  Any pointers on any of these subjects will be greatly appreciated. If not
>  already done, I will gladly post a HOW-TO when done.
>
>  Mike
>
>  --
>  fedora-list mailing list
>  fedora-list(a)redhat.com
>  To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
>  

--
--
David L. Martin
Roving: dlmarti(a)gmail.com
Home:  kc2lcf(a)arrl.net
Work:   dlmarti(a)accusort.com


--
fedora-list mailing list
fedora-list(a)redhat.com
To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Jim Higson]

This might be unconventional, but how about:

* create two partiations.
* Put damn small Linux on one (50M, designed to boot from credit card CD, so 
already doesn't keep logs etc). Leave a bit of room for extra software.
* Put home dirs etc on the other partition.

If you have a fair bit of ram boot using the --toram switch, since it's so 
damn small.

[Bob Chiodini]

On Mon, 2004-08-30 at 15:01, Mike Westkamper wrote:
>  I am working on making Linux (FC2) run on a flash disk.
>  
>  To avoid the write-cycle limits on the flash it must be configured without a
>  swap drive and remove any extraneous logging. I have eliminated the swap
>  partition, however I am not sure what logs are created and how to eliminate
>  them or direct them to /dev/nul. The objective is not to beat the flash to
>  death since there is a 1 million write cycle limit.
>   
Mike,

Add noatime to your mount options in fstab.  If possible mounting your
flash file systems read-only will eliminate the write-cycle limits.  I'm
still working on that part. This is my fstab:


/dev/msys/fla2  /               ext3    defaults,noatime        1   1
tmpfs           /var            tmpfs   defaults,size=8M        0   0
/dev/msys/fla1  /boot           msdos   defaults,ro,noatime     0   0
none            /dev/pts        devpts  gid=5,mode=620          0   0
none            /proc           proc    defaults                0   0
/dev/sda1       /mnt/usbdisk    auto    noauto,noatime          0   0
/dev/sda2       /mnt/usbdisk2   auto    noauto,noatime          0   0


>  I am also trying to make the kernel static, w/o modules, to keep the
> speed
>  up as the flash is slow. Here my attempts have been less that acceptable. I
>  constantly get errors on the build and can't seem to eliminate all the
>  modules.
>   
This might not be that important.  The two embedded projects here are
both based on the same OS build, but use different ethernet
controllers.  I built the drivers as modules and alias them in
modules.conf as appropriate for each system.  Here is the output of
lsmod for one of the systems:

Module                  Size  Used by    Not tainted
arcom-0.41              8896   2
usb-ohci               19872   0 (unused)
usbcore                73600   1 [usb-ohci]
eepro100               20428   1
mii                     3832   0 [eepro100]
msdos                   6940   1 (autoclean)
fat                    37400   0 (autoclean)  [msdos]
doc                   160128   2

This board has a built-in eepro interface.

>  Finally, to use some sort of sleep mode to avoid the re-boot delay on
> the
>  re-application of power. Once developed the system will not ever see any
>  different configuration. Here I can't find much information on how to do
>  this.
>   
I'd like this too!

Bob...