[ARMedslack] Missing files in "uinitrd-kirkwood" to support root file-system on SDHC card

[Niels Horn]

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 9:24 PM, Conor McCarthy <mr.spuratic at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2010/2/18 Cédric VINCENT <cedric.vincent at gmail.com>:
> [...]
>>
>> Please, let me know if you are using specific mount options for your
>> MMC partitions. For instance, I use an ext2 FS with the options
>> "noatime" and "async" to reduce as much as possible write cycles.
>
> I have added "noatime", "async" is the default with ext2 AFAIK, no
> harm being explicit of course. There's also "nodiratime", though I'm
> not entirely sure under what circumstances a directory atime is
> updated.
>
> Things I have done/will play with, once I've finished breaking things:
> - demote ext3 to ext2 (turn off journal, done, see ext3 FAQ)
> - relocate /var/run /var/tmp /tmp as tmpfs/ramfs
> - /var/man/cat* -- fix man page cache
> - relocate /var/cache/samba if using samba (tmpfs maybe)
> - keep (re)reading
>  http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2009/02/20/aligning-filesystems-to-an-ssds-erase-block-size/
>  until I can decide if there's anything I need to do :)
> - ditto for Documentation/sysctl/vm.txt, maybe dropping the flush
>  timeouts like dirty_writeback_centisecs and dirty_expire_centisecs
>
> Other useful things to reduce disk writes:
> - fix syslogd "MARK" (add "-m 0" to syslogd args in /etc/rc.d/rc.syslog)
> - move update/slocate db location (/var/lib/slocate) and/or set to run
>  weekly, not daily
>
> The system is used for home LAN media/file storage, and will be used
> for light web/email soon. I have an external bus-powered USB disk
> (Toshiba PX1399E 500GB 2.5", works perfectly with the sheevaplug).
> I'd like the system to run without the disk, though generally it will be
> attached, so I may end up doing something "interesting" with the
> syslog setup. I'm hoping that day-to-day writes to SD will be 0.
>
> Regards,
>  Conor.
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Conor,

Good suggestions. I've been running OS's (mostly Slackware) on a
bootable pendrive and tried to minimize write operations. Most things
you mentioned I did before, but some are new (like the man page cache,
syslogd "mark").
I plan on buying a USB drive before my SheevaPlug arrives, but for
some setups running it from an SD card can be very interesting.

Please keep me informed on your progress!

Niels