[Debian] Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

First at all: thank you very much about Easy Debian installation. It really, really makes me very happy that even I can run it easily! Thanks!

But, well. I have also a question.

I have memory card, 2GB. I have formatted it and I downloaded the debian on it and run it on chroot. It works well, I can install ssh, lighttpd etc. But when I tried to install mysql I noticed that I have no space anymore. In df I get this kind of output:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
sysfs 1.1G 1.1G 46M 96% /sys

Well. I have only 1.1G totally? What happened other free space what was on the memory card? I mean, how I can use the whole SD-card so I can get much more space to install applications on it?

Sorry if this is asked before, tried to search but didn't find.

Any help? :)

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

Argh!! I typed up a nice long response then my browser crashed before I could post it :(

Basiclly, you're using Debian from a 1 GB image file and not directly from the memory card. What you want to do is format your card to ext2 then install a debian root filesystem on it. See these two threads for help: (Note reads the threads carefully before doing anything!).

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=22561

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=22669

Edit: Also note that, in the second thread, my original method for trying to install a debian root filesystem was flawed. A few pages into that thread much better methods were explained (and also, qole uploaded a debian-apps tarball which can be untarred right on your ext2 partition).

Edit 2: Additionally, qole released a new debian image (final) that has lots of cool new stuff, but at this time (?) there is no root filesystem tarball. So, you could mount the ext2 image then tar it up, then untar it on your partition, but that is a pain. Unless you're familiar with how to do this, I recommend you wait for a tarball...

If you have any other questions, feel free to fire away :D

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

You could also dump (dd) the ext2 image onto a larger partition, and expand (resize2fs) it to fill the partition.

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

Is it possible to use resize2fs on the image file? Or does that only work on physical partitions?

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

No.. this is possible.. it's been discussed in the easy debian thread several places.

You have to copy the resize2fs binary from the debian installation to maemo.. and umount the image.. then run the resize.

But anytime I resized it more than 1.5GB the entire image would become so corrupted that I couldn't even delete it.. the FS had no idea what to do with the file.

The best way is to use a partition for debian.

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

Well, with the new dm-loop from Matan, the speed difference has almost disappeared (see the Easy Debian thread for more details about the new "turbo-boosted" Easy Debian), so I'm freshly excited by the possibilities of the image file.

Re: Beginners question about free space and apt-get installations
 

You're still limited in size of the image file. Larger files are harder for most filesystems to handle appropriately, makes little-to-no use of the benefits of a journaled (IIRC) filesystem.. and is more easily corruptible.

Again.. I think the image way is great if you have a specific set of small software you want from debian.. and that's it.

If you plan to install various different cool software you find in the repo's just to try it out.. and experiment on the debian side ... I would recommend using a full partition.

Speed never really had any determination into why I always recommended partitions... although it's great you were able to speed up the image .. for anything beyond using debian as a host for a couple apps I think you'd be better off with a ext3 part on your SD card... and swap.

The OP is describing loading a Web Server, a Mysql Server, essentially turning this tablet into a LAMP server.. now I doubt he/she will be doing any benchtesting or massive web-serving from a tablet.. but that's still a bit beyond what is meant for an image file IMHO.

Of course.. everyone is entitled to a different approach :).