Beware Minefield

[roberts]

Just a heads up, a FYI.

I have heard that for some their backup time is very long.
If you have selected the minefield extension, it could be the reason.

Even though minefield was compiled optimally for binary size and dependencies, minefield, aka, firefox is huge.
Firefox now uses sqlite databases to store many options and history of your browsing, sites visited, downloaded files, etc. In addition there is a huge file XUL.mfasl. All of these reside in your home/tc directory. That's right they will be in the default backup. There goes the backup time and space required.

Even though TC is tiny, your choices can result in bloat and slower running systems.

Personally, I prefer the Opera extension from Curaga. It works well with flash and sound,  i.e., the youtube test.

If you prefer to stay with minefield, you can choose to add these very large files to your .xfiletool.lst and thereby exclude them from your backup. Note, that minefield will still run fine, but some options or settings may not persist as such setting may likely reside in a now excluded file. On the otherhand, you may like it that minefield will not be recording sites visited and files downloaded. Do we even know how large such databases will grow?

Anyways, just wanted to bring this to your attention. Choices for either Opera vs Minefield, or tuning Minefield, or accept these large files.

Here is my .xfiletool.lst with minefield mods

Code: [Select]

Cache
XUL.mfasl
opt/.tce_dir
home/tc/mnt
home/tc/.adobe/Flash_Player/AssetCache
home/tc/.macromedia/Flash_Player
home/tc/.opera/opcache
home/tc/.opera/cache4
home/tc/.Xauthority
permissions.sqlite
cookies.sqlite
places.sqlite
search.sqlite
formhistory.sqlite
content-prefs.sqlite
downloads.sqlite
XPC.mfasl

HTH YMMY

[bigpcman]

Thanks for the tip on that one Robert. Guess I'll start using opera.

[tobiaus]

i would be wrong not to point out the difference it makes (for me) to delete the one sqlite list (no, urlclassifier is not even listed in roberts post, perhaps it's not in tc) of malware sites, and to delete your cookies (cache, and other things ff can be set to delete on exit) as an alternative to running opera.

opera is a very good, very fast, quality browser if minefield does not work to your satisfaction, and if you're happy browsing with something closed source. perhaps a kazehakase extension would be very good. i believe it is based on gtk(2?) and gecko, and is just the sort of thing to run in tc, yet is just as modern as ff and opera.

[roberts]

The files mentioned were gleamed from an ls -lSr of the .mozilla/firefox/xxxx.default directory. YMMV

[wiak]

All of these reside in your home/tc directory. That's right they will be in the default backup. There goes the backup time and space required.

More generally (not particularly or at least specifically to do with Minefield): if a symlink to a file is stored in home/tc is it only the symlink that gets backed up or the file it links to?

[^thehatsrule^]

The symlink itself should be.

[Jason W]

Waik, you have a good idea if you are thinking about placing a .mozilla directory on permanant storage and creating a symlink to called /home/tc/.mozilla.  I normally run with my /home directory in RAM and this is a valuable tip.  I have placed the symlink in my backup and my backup size as well as my RAM usage stays smaller.

[wiak]

thinking about placing a .mozilla directory on permanant storage and creating a symlink to called /home/tc/.mozilla. 

Exactly what I planned.

[wiak]

I'm also wondering if this provides an alternative to using tcz's, when you don't want a tce to end up extracting itself into RAM.

minefield.tce, for example, ends up extracting into /usr/local/firefox/

(similarly, firefox.tce extracts into /usr/local/firefox-official/)

Would it not be possible (as an option if you don't want the tce to extract to RAM) to make /usr/local/firefox/ (or even the whole of /usr/local for that matter) a symlink to a permanent partition /usr/local/firefox/ ?

[^thehatsrule^]

A better solution already exists: see the local= boot option (check out "core concepts" for more info)

[wiak]

Yes, I knew about the local=boot option, and it's an attractive one. However, as Core Concepts says, it suffers from the disadvantage of "system rot" over time. Using tcz doesn't (as far as I understand the concept used) and I wonder if what I suggested above is an alternative to  using tcz?

If so, what I'm suggesting is potentially surely a "Fifth Mode of Operation" using PPR/TCE but where the uncompressed TCE  can be kept (as an alternative) on  permanent/persistent storage giving the RAM-saving-efficiency of a full-install (scatter) but without the system rot over time.

[Jason W]

Unless the directory where your real files are is not writable, system rot will occur all the same even if there is a symlink being used in the system to point to the directory containing the files.

[wiak]

Yes, but TCE's are reloaded fresh everytime. That's one of the advantages is it not? What I'm suggesting is the same: I'm suggesting that TCE's could also be uncompressed onto persistent storage, with that being done on each reboot (as an "alternative" to that happening into RAM as at present). The persistent storage location has to be writable, but it doesn't need to be backed up between boots - same as if the TCE was uncompressed in RAM. The advantage is the RAM saving (giving up loading speed for more free RAM). So in that scheme there is no system rot.

[Jason W]

That is basically what happens if you use a tclocal mount and also keep your tce extensions in your tce folder to be loaded upon boot.

[wiak]

I see what you mean; it is the same as tclocal really.

It's still a good "trick" though, if you have a PPR/TCE system and suddenly need more RAM without rebooting.

For example, I just did the following and freed up around 70 MB of RAM:

1. I'm still using TC version 1.2 and have firefox.tce installed in /tce and boot frugally via grub with kernel option tce=hda4/tc1.2/tce in a PPR/TCE based system (my tce store being on /dev/hda4 in folder tc1.2 with my downloaded optional tce's being in tc1.2/tce/optional).

 [For variety of boot choices, I actually have various tce directories, all populated with symlinks pointing to my main optional tce store - as per a post made by softwaregurl at http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=155.0]

2. Once booted into TC, I copied the whole of /usr/local/firefox-official to /mnt/hda4/tc1.2/persistentfirefox-official

3. Then I deleted /usr/local/firefox-official (which frees up the RAM) but doesn't remove the Firefox icon from wbar.

4. In a terminal (as root user) I then created a symlink to the persisent copy of the firefox folder:

Code: [Select]

ln -s /mnt/hda4/tc1.2/persistentfirefox-official /usr/local/firefox-official
Clicking on the Firefox link brings it all up as usual, same configuration (since still have /home/tc/.mozilla folder), but several tens of extra free RAM now available.

I wouldn't normally bother doing the above but might come in handy on occasion...