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PUPMODEs 6 and 7

July 19, 2008 — BarryK
I have tidied this up in the 'init' script. The default is now not to copy the 'pup_xxx.sfs' to RAM unless the 'pfix=copy' boot parameter is given.

However, there are conditions in which this must be overriden. Here is the actual code in 'init':

#v405 decide whether to copy sfs's to ram...
COPY2RAM=""
COPYMSG='\\033[1;35mcopying to ram\\033[0;39m' #purple
#v4.00 lowered rom 230000 to 220000... v403 added PUPSFSDEVMNTPT test... v404 explicit PCOPY needed...
[ $PUPMODE -eq 5 ] && PCOPY="yes" #well, override on first boot.
#v404 absolutely must copy to ram, otherwise layerfs conflict...
[ $PUPMODE -eq 6 -o $PUPMODE -eq 7 ] && COPY2RAM="yes"
[ "$COPY2RAM" = "yes" ] && COPYMSG='\\033[1;35mforced copying to ram\\033[0;39m' #purple
[ $RAMSIZE -gt 220000 -a "$PCOPY" = "yes" ] && COPY2RAM="yes" #256MB system. note, only checking physical ram.


The SFS is copied to RAM on the first boot, if there is enough RAM, as that is what the first boot is all about, running totally in RAM.

PUPMODEs 6 and 7 are cases that I have recently mentioned. Frugal installation but using the entire partition to save, instead of a "pup_save" file. There is a conflict that causes Unionfs to potentially crash and Aufs to not start. File pup_xxx.sfs, in fact all SFSs that are to be loaded as a layer, must be copied to RAM ...oh dear.

Oh dear, because currently the 'init' script does not copy any additional SFS files, for example 'devx_xxx.sfs', to RAM.

Um, I think that I will withdraw support for PUPMODEs 6 and 7 totally. Unless I also add code to copy all SFSs to RAM ...yuck.

Note, sometime ago I was using PUPMODE 6 and 7 quite happily, with Unionfs. Perhaps that was the less ambitious v1.x series. These days, in both Aufs and Unionfs there is an emphasis on supporting direct writing to the layers, and I suspect this is what is causing the conflict.

Comments

PUPMODE 6
Username: DreamsToGo
I am using PUPMODE=6 successfully with Puppy 402 and Puppy 403. I have not yet tried it with 4.1a4 because I have been waiting for the dust to settle. Barry, please try to continue support for this PUPMODE as it seems a shame to waste most of the disk space available when you do a frugal install with a pupsave file (even when max size) - OR - Could you increase the maximum size of the pupsave file to use the remaining space available on the disk its installed to?

No copy to RAM default in ALL modes?
Username: ICPUG
"Are you saying that Puppy will no longer copy its sfs file to RAM, even when there is plenty available, when you run from CD - unless you specify the pfix="copy" parameter? This used to be one of Puppy's major plus points.


Tags: puppy