Baslinux mailing list

[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

On Tue, 18 Jan 2005 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> sindi keesan wrote:
> >         TOTAL   USED    FREE    SHARED  BUFFERS
> > loop    1716    1516    140     484     348
> > hd      1716    1508    208     484     128

free + buffers adds to 140+348=488 for loop, 208+128=336 for hd,
which means 152K more free ram in loop version.  But I have modules 
loaded, maybe more for the hd version.

> > Difference is 208 versus 140K free (68K) or 8K less used.
> > Steven, please explain again how to interpret buffers.
>
> > From the Linux FAQ (in Slackware /doc directory)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> The "free' figure printed by free doesn't include
> memory used as a disk buffer cache--shown in the
> "buffers" column.  If you want to know how much
> memory is really free add the "buffers" amount
> to "free"

OK, so I can rmmod all the modules and do free again to get:
mem=3M

loop    free 208 + buffer 384 = 592K usable RAM
hd           312 +         108 = 420K usable RAM

In this case the loop version has 172K MORE usable RAM, as it did in my 
above count.  I have mdacon still loaded in both versions.

The loop version is 20MB, the hd version probably occupying a partition 
that is about 100-200MB.

So the hd version appears to be taking up MORE not LESS RAM.  Why?
Same kernel.  What else takes up RAM besides the kernel when no programs 
are running?   Just init init init and one -sh.  Top shows about 500 
total (whats?), under RSS.

You said loop version took up more RAM because of the ramdisk, but the hd 
version is taking up more overall.  Don't know why.

> > does the loop version load modules differently?
>
> Not that I know of.
>
> > While trying to check this on the other computer
> > I was unable to do a Ctrl-Alt-Del in BL3 hd.
>
> It should work.  See /etc/inittab
>
> > I could type reboot to reboot.
> > Is typing reboot okay or does it mess things up?
>
> As you can see in /etc/inittab
> -------------------------
> ::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/reboot
> -------------------------
> Pressing CTRL-ALT-DEL tells init to execute reboot

I find it easier to type reboot.
This problem did not recur but I am sure it happened.  I kept hitting 
Ctrl-Alt-Del and only reboot finally worked.


> > I then tried to figure out how to mount the fs.img
> > from BL2
>
> insmod loop (this step is not necessary in BL3)
> mount -o loop fs.img /mnt
>
> > I do not have losetup
>
> The loop version of BL3 has losetup in /initrd/bin.
> It's a statically linked busybox binary.
I was trying to use BL2.  I followed instructions from 2 othe people and 
was able to chroot to the loop BL3 from Bl2.  I will see if it is posible 
to do this on the two Gateways that won't boot BL3.

> Cheers,
> Steven
>
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keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org