Vanilla Dpup 9.2.17 using old save folder

[bigpup]

Installed 64bit v9.2.17, as a frugal install on an external USB drive, using Grub4dos boot loader.

I am more testing it than using it as a daily OS.

Decided to see what using an old save, from a previous version, would do.

Used the save from v9.2.15

This save is not very big, only really has settings and config changes, in it.

Got the usual warning about using an old save, but decided to live on the wild side

Did the save update, during the boot process, and am using it now.

So far, seems to be working OK.

[wiak]

Does pfix=nocopy grub argument work for you. Didn't seem to for me - same amount of RAM used - seemed wrong.

[dimkr]

Used the save from v9.2.15

It's OK, this is safe. As you can see, the changelog is tiny, and every new build is built using the same woof-CE as before, plus a fix or two. In addition, the save file update procedure also updates the apt state: it updates package metadata for all installed packages that came from the ISO against the metadata from the new ISO, while preserving user-installed packages and their metadata.

The warning that tells you that "updating the save file" is dangerous and not recommended is misleading in the case of Vanilla Dpup. Maybe I'll change it, so this warning appears only if the major version has changed (i.e. 9.2.x to 10.0.0).

[Feek]

Does pfix=nocopy grub argument work for you. Didn't seem to for me - same amount of RAM used - seemed wrong.

pfix=nocopy works perfectly for me. I use extlinux.

Using this parameter (to boot version 9.2.17):

• during boot I can see the .sfs files are not copied into ram, so the boot time is shorter.

• Lxtask shows significantly less memory used (after boot).

[wiak]

Does pfix=nocopy grub argument work for you. Didn't seem to for me - same amount of RAM used - seemed wrong.

pfix=nocopy works perfectly for me. I use extlinux.

Using this parameter (to boot version 9.2.17):

• during boot I can see the .sfs files are not copied into ram, so the boot time is shorter.

• Lxtask shows significantly less memory used (after boot).

I'll try again - just a quick test with 'free' utility seemed to suggest RAM was not freed, though I noted at boot that the sfs files didn't indicate as if copied to RAM though was on fast machine so I might not have noticed the difference.

[wiak]

I tried again ver 9.2.17 (pristine) using grub2 grub.cfg:

Code: Select all

menuentry "Vdpup" {
  insmod ext2
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 424d8f42-e835-4111-9053-dd086b3d38e8
  linux /vdpup/vmlinuz pfix=nocopy pmedia=atahd psubdir=/vdpup
  initrd /vdpup/initrd.gz
}

with or without above pfix=nocopy, Lxtask after initial boot says around 650MB RAM used out of 32GB. I'm out of touch with Puppy booting - is something wrong with above (much the same using 'free' utility insteaad). 650MB is pretty high surely? and pfix=nocopy should be registering some difference as far as I understood it. Odd others have different result unless above stanza is wrong, which may well be.

[dimkr]

@wiak You'll see very different numbers after echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison if you include cache in these counters. (And increased use of cache is a positive thing - more file system cache means faster access to files on disk, and this cache is cleared if this memory is needed for something else).

~$ grep MemFree /proc/meminfo; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches; grep MemFree /proc/meminfo
MemFree: 3286584 kB
MemFree: 5001056 kB

(= Dramatic impact on a laptop with 8 GB of RAM)

[wiak]

@wiak You'll see very different numbers after echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches, it's not an apples-to-apples comparison if you include cache in these counters. (And increased use of cache is a positive thing - more file system cache means faster access to files on disk, and this cache is cleared if this memory is needed for something else).

~$ grep MemFree /proc/meminfo; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches; grep MemFree /proc/meminfo
MemFree: 3286584 kB
MemFree: 5001056 kB

(= Dramatic impact on a laptop with 8 GB of RAM)

You are correct - I forgot to drop_caches - just glanced at buf/cache used and calculated in my head wrong. I usually use the echo 3 trick but getting lazy: https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 5b#p313181