maemo.org - Talk - 770 - the forgotten tablet

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- Nokia 770 (https://talk.maemo.org/forumdisplay.php?f=24)

- - 770 - the forgotten tablet (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=15234)

Re: 770 - the forgotten tablet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnx (Post 139375)

I can tell you right now that my minimally functional Debian requires 550MB+ of flash. This can be reduced but it will never fit in the onboard NAND. Also, Debian is definitely using more memory than ITOS. This can be reduced but probably not solved entirely without making it something else besides Debian...

So this is exactly what happened with Maemo. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either you stay compatible with Debian or create your own leaner version and break compatibility.

Re: 770 - the forgotten tablet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnx (Post 139375)

@
As someone who was previously tasked with getting Debian to fit in a 512MB flash drive for work (web kiosks) I can tell you that it is very, very easy to start diverging from your upstream distro when space becomes a problem. Fitting Maemo in 128MB of flash is quite an incredible feat, and obviously sacrifices were required along the way. I can tell you right now that my minimally functional Debian requires 550MB+ of flash. This can be reduced but it will never fit in the onboard NAND. Also, Debian is definitely using more memory than ITOS. This can be reduced but probably not solved entirely without making it something else besides

I hope you dont misunderstand the output of the "top" command as memory usage. For a memory manager it makes sense to allocate more ram than needed for speed issues (less fragmentation). If other applications need ram it can free some.
Just look how many windows you can open in debian and how many in maemo on our tablet :).

I think 550MB is a good start :). I see no need to put debian on the internal NAND, which cannot be replaced easily.

Re: 770 - the forgotten tablet

@fanoush: Agreed. Everything is a compromise. The trick is finding the *right* compromise. To make the system fit into 128MB of flash (probably more like 256MB uncompressed) you lose a lot of functionality. Meanwhile I haven't taken even the most basic measures with Debian to make it lighter. Switching the default shell (not the user's shell...) to dash and skipping quite a few services that autostart will save lots of RAM. Recompiling critical packages with better optimization is possible as well without breaking compatibility with upstream Debian. Nokia didn't really try that hard to stay compatible with Debian. IIRC, their lsb package is more like Debian's lsb-core, for example and that's a ton of breakage right there.

BTW, I *will* have my cake and eat it, too...it will just take some time. :D

-John