RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

Whats the damn story with this tiny problematic RootFS!?!?

My phone has hardly been used and the rootfs has 4mb of so left.
I uninstalled just about everything and tried apt-get clean and in the end I had 10.8mb left..

Why is it so small? Can it be enlarged and why would Nokia use such a small rootfs? There is PLENTY of space on the N900..

Please help, I'm new to linux and I don't understand how this can cause my phone to not even work when it fills up.

It became full once before for no reason so I decided to format the emmc and reflash.. I do not want to do it again.. Seems like a REALLY terrible design.

Why do programs install to rootfs?
I have been reading about installing .deb packages on here and they can fill the rootfs very fast... I don't understand this part of linux.. Sorry.

Also, I'm sure after I had uninstalled everything, the only extras-devel I have installed are: Power Kernel and Maemo Python (which I think I uninstalled, too).

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

It is mostly fixed in a firmware update hopefully due soon. There are tips for giving yourself more rootfs in the Wiki.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

It is indeed a pretty crappy limitation (256MB), but there are things you can do to have room for as many applications as you want, namely moving things out of rootfs. There are scripts which can do this for you.

See: http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_up_rootfs_space

Download and run this script, as it safely frees up rootfs space and shows how much it has freed: http://wiki.maemo.org/User:Tanner#Sa...pace_on_rootfs

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

if you are installing stuff from testing or devel, it will take your rootfs space.

simple way to avoid that: dont install anything from testing or devel.

but even some apps from extras take away space from rootfs, which is something i dont unterstand. so there is no real way of telling if a program will do that. the authors of the apps dont seem to care too much.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

extras devel repo is bad news unless you are an advanced user and want to go cleanin out crap manually after uninstalls and most of it isnt optified but dont worry. .

the easiest thing you can do is complete reflash.... see below.

Remember to bacl up data etc. there are other options available to try but im tired (a search may yield info)

http://discussions.europe.nokia.com/...ata/m-p/591877

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

I'm of no help on this - all apps should have been optified by now - however the complaints of rootfs takes me back to the days when we had to make everything run in the first 640k in DOS.

I truly think a part of my soul died back then...

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

ah looks like others already replied whilst i was typing lol.... use my method for back to factory reset but see if the other tips help free up enough space....

p.s you should have appx 73mb rootfs free after a complete wipe.

stay away from extrasdevel and you wont get any rootfs issues as the apps are all optified

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

My impression is that the programs in extras-devel ARE mostly optified, based on my use and looking at rootfs after each installation.

But the limitation is so severe it eventually catches up with an enthuastic installer anyway.

The Wiki rootfs doc plus PR1.2 when it is available should give lots more rootfs.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

My tip is after every install check the rootfs space. If an app takes too much uninstall it and hope that it will be someday optified. In the meantime here are a few tips: http://wiki.maemo.org/Free_up_rootfs_space

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

Thanks for all the replies..
I went and done some of the things on "Free up rootfs space" wiki and yes, I'm left with 10mb.
Very silly limitation. Does anyone know what the increase will be when 1.2 is out (or on the Beta copy)?

I'm not even sure why you would have programs running from there.. Seem's very weird. I thought that rootfs is a firmware partition. Like iPhone's firmware partition.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

How much rootfs space do you have after you disable all your repositories?

I think that the rootfs area is memory that is particularly fast and expensive, which is why it is limited (correct me if I'm wrong, someone).

I was running out of rootfs myself, and with the leaked version of 1.2 I have 82.1 megs left after installing every program I can think of that I want.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

There is a bad mixing of terms here. The rootfs is where the kernel and all Maemo core software is stored, and runs from. This rootfs is little different from any other Linux root filesystem, and -is- the Maemo "firmware."

As far as Maemo (and Linux) is concerned, it's just another disk.

The physical size limitation is due to it being stored on a high speed chip that is only 256MB in size, which was the biggest available when the N900 was designed. So there is a reason for it.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

I might actually take the risk and installed the leaked!

I thought/think the rootfs is just a partition of the main 32GB ssd....

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

In case nobody has mensioned this, the 256MB rootfs is on a separate, fast (expensive) flash disk to the 32GB emmc flash. Having the most commonly used parts of the OS on the faster disk speeds the OS up considerably.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

I smell a lie.....

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

A little comparison:
40MB write to
rootfs; 1-2sec
/home/usr; 5-7sec

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

So check my logic here -- if you want to maximize speed, you want to use as much of the rootfs as possible, not leave it empty, right?
Or do things write to the rootfs and so it's wise to leave 20 megs or so empty?

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

exactly. but the logic is a bit wrong: what use does it have to have your app in faster partition if it slows the os at the same by reading/writing to same partition and keeping os waiting for its turn in line to read/write?

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

can you also test to read it?

because most of the time rootfs is read from not that much written too..


about apps from extra's or devel, it is almost never the app itself that is the problem as far as i noticed it. It is most of the time support libs like QT or Python and so on.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

Good Point : This is what I do to check on space after every install/de-install. Not sure, if this could be useful to others, but I have one small script to check this space usage before and after any install/de-install.

Few Screenshot:
1 ) After enabling the testing and extra repo. It shows that around 15mb has been used in rootfs after enabling them.

2) To make it more quick accessible I have put it in desktop shortcut. And after that its shows something like this.

You may have already got the point but jut to say that GREEN says space has been released and RED means more space is utilized.

How to use:
Run the script, it will take the pre snapshot and wait for your input. Leave this window open and then do your install/de-install. After that come back to this screen and press Enter and it will give the report.

Files attached.
chk_fs.sh Copy it to /home/user/scripts
As root
spacex.desktop Copy it to /usr/share/applications/hildon
spacex.png Copy it to /usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/hildon

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

I wonder if some flash/ ssd hardware manufacturer in China will come up with an installable 500mb chip to put the Maemo5 rootfs on, now that the N900 has been released in Hong Kong. They must be having at least some of these problems even with PR 1.2?

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

It was a good practice when programmer always tried to make their programs efficient in both space and time.
However, after the price down of storage, we are too lazy to make our programs more efficient.
I think it is a good time for developers to recall those hard time when only xxKb is available for programs.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

Not quite that easy. The NAND chip in question is in a special type of package that is soldered directly to the processor, likely in the same chip package as the SDRAM. It was manufactured by Samsung, and cannot be easily replaced by the end user without a lot of very, very special equipment.

They did, and as a result the programs were far less complex and capable as software is today. Not everything today is pure bloat.

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

Is there any possible way (maybe a script of some kind?) to block any programs installing to the RootFS and prevent this problem?

Re: RootFS again.. I don't understand!
 

No, developers are supposed to be proactive when working on N900-targeted software and properly "optify" their packages before making them available.

If one isn't, you should file a bug report or contact the developer.