PCLinuxOS Openbox Bonsai 2010.11<s>.13</s> who wants to test ?

[melodie]

How do you control this?

Jeff

Hi,

That's menu-cache (the library from Lxde project : openbox-menu is just there as a pipe-menu), and it is out of my hands. I simply invoke "openbox-menu" in  a normal user console once or twice. It must display the whole rc.xml file. If it does not, it's not good. Last time I did that was in the RC7 in Virtualbox, and after 2 times the Applications menu came back. I tried in the root account too, but this didn't work there, so I copied back the cached files from the user account.

I am soon going to remaster a RC 7.5 with all the most recent cached files copied to /etc/skel, and /root, with the right options in bleachbit : put the .cache/menu directory in the whitelist (must not be erased).

Other little additions will also follow. These packages added:

Code: [Select]

libggi2
mesa
mesa-demos
libpwdb0
addlocale
One file in the system needed to be restored to it's origin... since the issue we had met with the services. I thought about it only last night.

Regards,
Mélodie

[jlf001]

Hi,

That's menu-cache (the library from Lxde project : openbox-menu is just there as a pipe-menu), and it is out of my hands. I simply invoke "openbox-menu" in  a normal user console once or twice. It must display the whole rc.xml file. If it does not, it's not good. Last time I did that was in the RC7 in Virtualbox, and after 2 times the Applications menu came back. I tried in the root account too, but this didn't work there, so I copied back the cached files from the user account.

I am soon going to remaster a RC 7.5 with all the most recent cached files copied to /etc/skel, and /root, with the right options in bleachbit : put the .cache/menu directory in the whitelist (must not be erased).

Other little additions will also follow. These packages added:

Code: [Select]

libggi2
mesa
mesa-demos
libpwdb0
addlocale
One file in the system needed to be restored to it's origin... since the issue we had met with the services. I thought about it only last night.

Regards,
Mélodie

Thanks for the information.  Looking forward to RC7.5.

Jeff

[melodie]

Hi,

The next will be renamed to "openbox base", as it appears that it's not a mini such as the ones we are used to : no additionnal non free drivers or firmwares, but the base to make easily something else out of it.

Among the projects I have been thinking of, I would like to try to make a server version, with Lighttpd, mysql, php and a CMS preinstalled.
(A photoblog would be nice for instance). My son would like a game edition... and a Edu project has been left aside : didn't see Crow for a while now at his thread at mypclinuxos.com forum...

The new iso Openbox Base just finished remastering is 266 MB. I hope that this iso is ok, and I'll now test it right away. I'll be back when it will be tested, and hopefully, uploaded.

Regards,
Mélodie

[jlf001]

The new iso Openbox Base just finished remastering is 266 MB. I hope that this iso is ok, and I'll now test it right away. I'll be back when it will be tested, and hopefully, uploaded.

OpenBox Base it is.  I'll be looking for it.

Jeff

[gseaman]

There is also this additional configuration with Compcache having a ramzswap control installed and configured. What does it do ? It creates a compressed swap device in ram, so that less memory is necessary to perform any task. I know Compcache and used it a long time in Archlinux, to improve the behavior of my system while using several greedy applications at same time. If you don't use the swap partition, the machine stays smooth : everyone having a bit experience know that. Once you start swapping to disk you can just start shutting down programs to avoid blocking the machine (most of the time) and sometimes you even need to umount the swap (swapoff) in order to reset it.

So when a few versions ago nixer told me he could not install anymore, because the gui installer is too greedy, I thought Compcache could be the solution to this problem, and how did I do that ? Well I know the nearest person who could deal with it : the man who has talked to me about Compcache first, years ago when it appeared.
I asked him if it was possible to configure the system in a clean way, so that the users would not have to deal with it, as it's not really easy to figure out for most people (including myself).

How does it work ?
There is a binary in the directory /usr/local/sbin : rzscontrol. This is one piece of software that belongs to the sources of Compcache and which is meant to manage the behavior of Compcache. There is a module in the kernel, which is default active (option is on "y") and that Galen has talked about in an earlier post (the lzo_decompress module). There is another module which needs to be loaded to be active, it's ramzswap.

How is it configured ?
The configuration is set in the file /etc/rc.d/rc.local. It's generously commented, and contains as well a link to the documentation.
This configuration is done in such a way that compcache module be loaded at boot, the ramzswap device created and mounted, and in such a way that it will use the default setting : that's to say 25% of the available memory will be compressed as a block device. If you want to change this, you will surely have to read either the documentation online, or the documentation provided in the sources, (available at google code).
...
The result is really amazing. You get 25% more potential from the RAM you have. For example, the machine from which I a posting, a laptop NEC 160M of 2006, with Celeron 1.46 ghz and 1 Go ram has a ramzswap of

$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda7                               partition    1020088    0    -1
/dev/ramzswap0                          partition    256012    0    30

of exactly 1/4 of the available memory:

free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1000        579        420          0        122        260
-/+ buffers/cache:        196        803
Swap:         1246          0       1246

The priority set is done in such a way that the system will use ramzswap first.

I used this information to finally get ramzswap working on my main laptop with kde4! I don't know if it will be a substantial benefit with 1gb ram, but it could be. I'll be testing and if it is a noticable improvement, I'll start a new thread. Thanks, Melodie!

Galen

[melodie]

I used this information to finally get ramzswap working on my main laptop with kde4! I don't know if it will be a substantial benefit with 1gb ram, but it could be. I'll be testing and if it is a noticable improvement, I'll start a new thread. Thanks, Melodie!

Galen

Hi galen,
I'll be looking forward to reading it. And maybe in the coming times it will be possible to request a package and get the request to interest a packager ?

[melodie]

Hi,

PCLinuxOS Openbox Base is there.
266 MB as said above.

pclinuxos-openbox-base.iso
pclinuxos-openbox-base.md5sum

Regards,
Mélodie

[gseaman]

I used this information to finally get ramzswap working on my main laptop with kde4! I don't know if it will be a substantial benefit with 1gb ram, but it could be. I'll be testing and if it is a noticable improvement, I'll start a new thread. Thanks, Melodie!

Galen

Hi galen,
I'll be looking forward to reading it. And maybe in the coming times it will be possible to request a package and get the request to interest a packager ?

I saw your request, but I stick to packages which are not system wide changes, like libraries, kernels, etc. I don't want to be responsible for messing things up for someone. Also, everything is already there. All that is needed is a slight modification to your rc.local for openbox mini. rzscontrol is in /usr/sbin/ instead of /usr/local/sbin. (And it probably requires kernel >= 2.6.33) I also had to reboot twice before it worked. I don't know why. It could be a boot order glitch like we were having with the earlier openbox-mini RC's.

Galen

[melodie]

I saw your request, but I stick to packages which are not system wide changes, like libraries, kernels, etc. I don't want to be responsible for messing things up for someone. Also, everything is already there. All that is needed is a slight modification to your rc.local for openbox mini. rzscontrol is in /usr/sbin/ instead of /usr/local/sbin. (And it probably requires kernel >= 2.6.33) I also had to reboot twice before it worked. I don't know why. It could be a boot order glitch like we were having with the earlier openbox-mini RC's.

Galen

Hi,

The directory /usr/local is meant to install programs that are installed by yourself in the system when it doesn't belong to a package, so that any time in the future if you have changes to do you will remember to look there and find it easily. The directories under /usr/local are in the path of root, so there is no problem in using it. The rc.local script uses /usr/local/sbin : I suppose you have modified the content of rc.local to fit with the /usr/sbin path in your KDE install ?

Compcache needs indeed a kernel = or > to 2.6.33. The settings done here will need to be changed starting kernel 2.6.36. I know we are not there yet and might have a bit of time in front of us, using it as is.

I don't know why you had to reboot twice, but it's not about services order. Compcache does not depend on init scripts else than the rc.local, and there is no more problem in the services order now.
If you see ramzswap in /proc/swaps then all is well.

[gseaman]

Yep!

[galen@localhost ~]$ cat /proc/swaps
Filename                                Type            Size    Used    Priority
/dev/sda5                               partition       4088500 0       -1
/dev/ramzswap0                          partition       256108  252     30
[galen@localhost ~]$

The only drawback I can anticipate, is if you are using all of your ram for one program, or process, things could actually be slower. Maybe, creating or burning an iso?

Galen

[melodie]

The only drawback I can anticipate, is if you are using all of your ram for one program, or process, things could actually be slower.

If all ram is used including the swap in ram you will fall back to hard drive swap, as usual...

Maybe, creating or burning an iso?

Galen

An iso of what ?
I don't quite get what you mean...

[gseaman]

I meant if you have a system with 1gb or ram and ramzswap is using part of it for a swap partition, if your system needs all 1gb to load a large file, like an iso or dvd, then that memory being used as swap potentially could slow things down. I don't know that this is true, I am just theorizing. 

Galen

[melodie]

I meant if you have a system with 1gb or ram and ramzswap is using part of it for a swap partition, if your system needs all 1gb to load a large file, like an iso or dvd, then that memory being used as swap potentially could slow things down. I don't know that this is true, I am just theorizing. 

Galen

No, it's not swap as in your hard drive : it's created as a block device that is compressed. Reread at the main site, word for word : it's compressed memory.
http://code.google.com/p/compcache

the default configuration provides an extra memory potential of 25% of the total ram available.
In a machine with 1 GB, I can run Virtualbox and other programs at same time with more ease. With Compcache, we have run a distro on a PII having a cpu of 200 Mhz, with very little ram in it. I think it was 64 Mb ram. I was in Slitaz with Compcache installed and running.
We had a recent kernel, 2.6.24 at this time I think, and newest Firefox, played music, surfed with on or several tabs in Firefox... impressive experiment.

[gseaman]

This is good to know. So, why limit the compressed memory to only 25%?

Galen

[melodie]

This is good to know. So, why limit the compressed memory to only 25%?

Galen

I don't know much about the limits, but logically compressing and decompressing needs cpu use : therefore 25% is probably a good number for most machines ?

Have you looked at the comments in rc.local ? There are indications of what else can be done, and a link to the doc at the compcache website. You could also read into the doc that are in the sources, if you want to digg further. I think this can be interesting.