I don't get it - install TC on CF-Card / no persistency

[AndreasMeier]

Hi there,

I'm completely new to TinyCore Linux, but I found it is really great.
I read through the getting_started section of the website and through the installation section.

My computer is a FSC ThinClient, with a Geode CPU 1GHz, 256MB RAM and 192MB CF-Card.
TC is installed an the CF-Card.

I think, TC is running in cloud/internet mode, because no changes/installed apps are persistent after reboot.

Now, I want to figure out, what boot mode is best for me.
What I need is a fast boot up.
The apps I need, are the following:
- opera low-ram mode
- openoffice
- printer access to my cups server, running on another computer
- rdesktop to access freenx/nomachine terminal server

In addition, I want to make the Geode CPU frequency stepping dynamicly to save power / heat.

All these app installation and changes on configuration files should be persistent.
But boot time should be fast as it is now.

What mode should I use and how do I have to change my installation in order to change the boot mode/code?
What files do I have to edit?

Thanks in advance for a quick clear up.
Regards
Andreas

[Juanito]

Since you have a relatively low amount of RAM available, your processor is relatively fast and you would like to use openoffice, which is heavy on resources (and will use more than 50% of your CF card), I would suggest you use tcz extensions - this will minimise the amount of RAM used.

If you would like the applications to be available at boot, then you can create a directory /tce in the root of the CF card and the extensions you copy to it will (probably) be automatically loaded at boot.

To make your set-up persistent across boots, you can set a backup using the control panel backup button. Add any required config files to /opt/.filetool.lst and they will automatically be loaded on re-boot.

This is just my suggestion on what to do - others might have better ideas...

Note that I only tested the cpufreq extension with intel speedstep processors, I'm not sure if it will work with a geode processor or not.

[AndreasMeier]

Thanks for the quick answer.

First of all, forget the amount of RAM and size of CF-Card, both are changeable, so I'm trying right now to get a 1024MB sized RAM and also a bigger CF-Card (last if necessary).

To be more prezise on the usage of the ThinClient:
Prio1:
- need of a quick boot time
- need of a quick availability of Opera after bootup / quick start time of Opera.
  This is THE main app, I would use on the ThinClient.
- need of a quick availability of a pdf application to read pdf documents / quick start time of this app.
Prio2:
- openoffice would be used barely, so no quick start time of this app is needed
- also other apps that might come are not needed for quick avail after bootup

I installed TC on the CF-Card, which is /dev/hda1 (only one partition on the CF-Card).
After startup, I mounted /dev/hda1 to /mnt/hda1, but is was empty. Is that possible?
How do I have to mount the CF-Card correctly, in order to make the tce-directory?

Is there a difference between installings apps for my Prio1 or Prio2 issues?
Different installation process?

I'm working now many years with Debian Linux, but getting into a new distro and making the first steps with it is sometimes hard, so sorry for my questions (and more will probably follow).

Regards,
Andreas

[Jason W]

I have no experience with cf cards, but Epdfview is a fairly light and capable pdf viewer.  But it requires gtk2, which takes several megabytes of space and is not the lightest toolkit.

[jpeters]

I like gsview, since you have the ram; very fast; also gnumeric for a spreadsheet in place of OO.

[Andreas_2009]

Note that I only tested the cpufreq extension with intel speedstep processors, I'm not sure if it will work with a geode processor or not.

Cpufreq is working with the Geode processor.
I did the following manual steps:
- modprobe powernow-k7
- modprobe cpufreq-ondemand (or whatever)
- cpufreq -D

Then in an additional terminal I cat the file /proc/cpuinfo.
Before I did the a.m. commands, it showed me 1 GHz and after the commands 667MHz.
I don't know, what steps of frequency are provided, but it works somehow.

Can you give me some advice, in which file I have to place the modprobe commands and how to start cpufreq as a daemon ?

Thanks in advance,
Regards
Andreas

[^thehatsrule^]

My guess is that it didn't mount successfully... (run `mount` to see all currently mounted)

Did you see the .info for cpufreq?

[Juanito]

Can you give me some advice, in which file I have to place the modprobe commands and how to start cpufreq as a daemon ?

You could put the following commands (from the .info file) in bootlocal.sh or in a script called from bootlocal.sh:

Code: [Select]

modprobe powernow-k7
modprobe cpufreq_conservative
modprobe cpufreq_ondemand
modprobe cpufreq_powersave
modprobe cpufreq_userspace
acpid
cpufreqd
/etc/init.d/laptop-mode start

Note that to see what's going on, you can use:

Code: [Select]

$ cpufreq-info
..and to display things in conky, you can use:

Code: [Select]

[.conkyrc]
${color grey}CPU Freq: $color ${execi 60 ~/.cpufreq.sh}
${color grey}CPU Govn: $color ${execi 60 ~/.cpugov.sh}

[.cpufreq.sh]
#!/bin/sh
#
cpufreq-info -mf | tr -d '\n'
#
# EOF

[.cpugov.sh]
#!/bin/sh
#
cpufreq-info -p | awk '{printf $3}'
#
# EOF


[Andreas_2009]

Worked!

Geode CPU has 3 frequencies: 667MHz, 800MHz and 1000MHz (just for your information).

Worked nearly out-of-the-box in combination with conky.
The mentioned configfile (or changes on that) was not necessary, conky is already configured for showing the frequency.

Thanks for all your help.
Regards
Andreas

[Juanito]

..conky is already configured for showing the frequency.

Are you referring to the conky variable "freq(n)"?

I was never sure if this shows the maximum frequency a cpu is capable of rather than the frequency cpufreq is obliging a cpu use at a particular moment in time...

BTW - you might want to play with the cpufreqd config file. I noticed that my cpu will operate happily at 65degC without cpufreq loaded, but once loaded, cpufreq slows the cpu down as soon as its temperature reaches 55degC.

[Andreas_2009]

I'm refering to no variable. It simply worked with the standard config file from conky and conky just showed up the currenctly used frequency (currently 667MHz, the lowest step).
I have nothing here to stress my cpu in order to see, how the frequency and conky reacts in that case.
Hopefully the frequency goes up to 1GHz on demand as needed.

Hm, you mentioned the temperature. I tried lm_sensors on the Geode-board, but no sensors were found  
So I don't know, if cpufreq pushes the temperature higher than without, but to be honest, I can't imagine, because of the lower frequency.
Since now, all computers I used got a lower temperature after using cpufreq with a lower frequency.
What cpu are you using?

[Juanito]

You can get the cpu temperature via the acpi subsystem - the conky variable "acpitemp". You can also get this directly from /proc or /sys - I'm at my old non-acpi desktop at the moment otherwise I could give you the details.

I was using a pentium m, now I've moved to a core duo - both are slowed down by the default cpufreq config temperature setting unless I change it.

[curaga]

It's in /proc/acpi/thermal_zone, but not all ACPI bioses have it there.

[tobiaus]

I'm refering to no variable. It simply worked with the standard config file from conky and conky just showed up the currenctly used frequency (currently 667MHz, the lowest step).

i'm thinking conky is configured to show portions of /proc/cpuinfo, something like that.