I have OS2008 set up with dual boot using a 4gb minicard in the internal slot. I started installing a lot of applications and then got an error message saying insufficiet memory. Can someone take a look at my memory stats below to see what is happening and what to do?

/home/user # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mmcblk0p2 2.0M 2.0M 0 100% /mnt/initfs
none 512.0k 88.0k 424.0k 17% /mnt/initfs/tmp
/dev/mmcblk0p2 374.3M 374.3M 0 100% /
none 512.0k 88.0k 424.0k 17% /tmp
none 1.0M 24.0k 1000.0k 2% /dev
tmpfs 1.0M 0 1.0M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1 3.4G 867.2M 2.6G 25% /media/mmc2
/dev/mmcblk1p1 120.0M 1.2M 118.8M 1% /media/mmc1
/home/user #

daaders

It seems to me that you've partitioned the card the wrong way. You have 374 MB system partition and 3,4 GB "internal card". You probably would want them to be the other way round.

I think my problem is with this line:

/dev/mmcblk0p2 2.0M 2.0M 0 100% /mnt/initfs

It appears that this part of the partition is maxed out. When I partitioned I wanted 3.4 gb for files and 512 mb for the OS and related stuff. Not sure what I did wrong or how to fix it. I sure hate to start over.

No, current firmwares fill initfs 100% and this is not a problem (nothing writes there).

This is your problem, I'd say:

374 MB just isn't that much for OS & stuff. My root partition has 640 MB used and I'm not even trying to fill it up. I think that you're up for a repartitioning. You can probably copy the files from your system partition and return them after the partitioning, but I don't know the details.

I suggest creating a large root partition and a small "internal card". Everything you store on your /home/user -directory is saved on the root partition so you can utilise it quite well. The "internal card" is there mainly for compatibility.

Yep, it does look like that is where the problem is. So there is no space left in this partition, which also is the place where the operating system is located, correct? Does anyone have any suggestions? When I install an application, it is evidently defaulting to this section. I also noticed that my email inbox won't write messages I receive so i assume the directory for this is also in this part. There must be a way to save to another location and leave this partition for the operating system, yes?

daaders

Okay, I have an 8gb external card so one option is to copy the 374 mb to the external card, reformat and partition the internal card with say 1 gb for the OS and then copy the 374 mb back to the 1 gb. Will that work?

Option 2 seems messier since I'd have stuff in two places but it certainly is easier. So I would create a directory.... how would i do this and then point to it?

daaders

I edited my previous post because I remembered things a little wrong. I remembered that /home/user would be mounted on a different partition from the root (/). /home/user is the directory where most of your data is saved. If you did mount it on a different partition, then your root partition would stay smaller. On a IT and limited memory however it is better to make one big root partition and use it. You probably can't configure the programs to use the "internal card" as storage, because it uses FAT filesystem instead of EXT2.

So from the top: Your root partition (/) is too small, you have a large "internal card" that you can't use to store email and other stuff because they are automatically stored under /home/user
The easiest solution is to partition the card so that your root is say 3,4 GB and "internal card" 0,5 GB. Then use the /home/user directory to store your files. It is the directory that has Audio clips, Documents, Images etc under it. If you need more storage, use the external card. You could also buy a 2 GB card dedicated as the system card and use your 4 GB in the external drive as a storage medium.

Sorry for the confusion

That should work if you can keep the file structure intact. This means privileges, groups, owners and all that. I don't know exactly how to do that, but suspect that tar at least is capable of it because it is also used in cloning the internal flash to mmc. I hope somebody else can answer this.

Forget this. It was just me remembering things wrong. You can have your stuff in one place.

Thank you, Naranek. The problem is clear to me now. The solution is obvious --repartition as you suggested. I can go back and follow the dual boot steps I used previously but this time reverse the sizes. However, I have spent a lot of time and effort customizing and configuring. Can you (or anyone) tell me how I would save my existing content, configurations, etc and still do the new partitions? I am not an expert at this and will have to be careful.

Daaders