Keep your savefile slim and healthy

[Pelo]

Pupsaveconfig is very usefull. I use Puppy on USB sticks and my personal save files are kept on the stick. The choice at shutdown to save or not the session is a great plus.
Sometimes i wonder why pupsave has become so big, Gdmap explains a lot.
Browsers sometimes fullfill OPT directory, and are nore erased at shutdown.

When my pupsave is too big after several resizings, I create a new one, and i transfer from the old what's is pertinant.

[rmcellig]

Pelo

You open up your current save file and just drag wHat you need to your new save file? I didn't know you can do this. Pretty cool. What pup do you use? I am torn between 528 and the new precise 5.7.

[Pelo]

All puppies save files can be opened. Even if there are from different distros. Lucid can open a slackosave and you can transfer pets, pictures, docs and bookmarks.
I open the distro with the new save file running, and i open the old one, not the contrary. But I think the contrary would work too.You transfer what you like.

[rmcellig]

So you can actually transfer files from savefiles? That's cool.

[Pelo]

Video : pupsaveconfig how-to
saving on the USB stick : pay attention, you need to modify default status. Dont forget to click 'back' to modify it. In my case pupsaveconfig was saving on hard disk ext 3 (sda3). I wanted to correct it because my wish is to have my save file on my usb stick (sdb1). Look at that !

Pupsavconfig save everything or nothing ! Up to you to select what to trash among the works you have done during the session.
Remember that you save periods of time, computer does not know your wills.
pupsaveconfig

[nooby]

Much appreciated. I should look into it ASAP
but knowing me I doubt that I am savvy enough to get it.

but very good you share such knowledge so Thanks

[Hugh]

Two of my savefiles, one for Lupu and the
other for Slacko, began filling up quickly
so I mounted and examined the files to look
for the problem.

I found a hidden folder [root/.mozilla] and within it
found root/.mozilla/firefox or root/.mozilla/seamonkey
which both contained another folder called Crash Reports.
Within that folder is another folder Pending, which in
my case was about 200MB of files.

I deleted the Pending folder with all of those
reports and recovered over 200MB of space.

I searched around the save files looking for other
bloat and unnecessary stuff but couldn't find any-
thing suspicious.

In order to mount the Lupu save file from Slacko
I first had to change its permissions to enable
opening and searching. The Slacko save file was
already enabled to be opened from Lupu.

If any others have found areas of the save files
which are using up precious space needlessly
please share your findings!

[bill]

Here is one that maybe a new user would like to tinker with.

This mod works well with this distro here:
https://archive.org/details/Puppy_Linux_lupu-520_110319

[snayak]

The biggest problem I am facing is, whatever is installed in /opt, takes space in savefile.

I try to install the things which I manually compile and install using "make" and "make install" to /opt. All of them sits in savefile.

Is there a way to keep /opt out of savefile?

Sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

[nic007]

The biggest problem I am facing is, whatever is installed in /opt, takes space in savefile.

I try to install the things which I manually compile and install using "make" and "make install" to /opt. All of them sits in savefile.

Is there a way to keep /opt out of savefile?

Sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

I believe save files should be kept to the absolute minimum size (only use to save customized settings). Rather use SFS add-ons for new programmes or install and then remaster. My save file is hardly ever bigger than 32MB. Most of the time I don't even use one.

[snayak]

Thanks nic007.

I didn't know that we can remaster the installed folder to a sfs and use it. Thanks. I will definitely try this.

However, One doubt I am not clear about.

Lets say a installed program "myapp", which has a file /etc/myapp.conf. Now after installation, in /opt it stays at /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf. Say, this file being a configuration file, automatically gets modified and being saved once the app starts to run.

[Some other files also may need be changed when the installed app runs.]

Now I will make a sfs of this program. When sfs loads, the app will be able to run nicely. Once the app quits, it shall modify and save /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf to use it next time.

My doubt is, will my remastered sfs gets modified here? If not, where shall the modified version of /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf gets stored? Does it gets stored in savefile? What happens if you don't use a savefile at all?


Will you please help me to clear my doubts?


Sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

[bill]

Here's the trick.

[mikeb]

Yes if you use a program that installs to say /opt but as an sfs then any configs can still be written in use but only those get stored in the save file. Two examples I use are libreoffice and adobe reader. They only add a meg or 3 to the save.

I don't have a save file but use archives of the ramdisk contents so keeping tidy is a very good idea. My saves are usually 5 - 50MB uncompressed . Add on programs are all sfs. Messy programs like browsers need close scrutiny to tame their habits.

mike

[nic007]

Thanks nic007.

I didn't know that we can remaster the installed folder to a sfs and use it. Thanks. I will definitely try this.

However, One doubt I am not clear about.

Lets say a installed program "myapp", which has a file /etc/myapp.conf. Now after installation, in /opt it stays at /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf. Say, this file being a configuration file, automatically gets modified and being saved once the app starts to run.

[Some other files also may need be changed when the installed app runs.]

Now I will make a sfs of this program. When sfs loads, the app will be able to run nicely. Once the app quits, it shall modify and save /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf to use it next time.

My doubt is, will my remastered sfs gets modified here? If not, where shall the modified version of /opt/myapp/etc/myapp.conf gets stored? Does it gets stored in savefile? What happens if you don't use a savefile at all?

When having a frugal install all changes/modifications to the system are stored in the save file. The base SFS and all other add-on SFS's are read-only and will not be altered during a session (they stay the same). So when you use the remaster programme from the menu it will mostly include everything on the save file by default, but not always. To ensure that all your settings, etc. get remastered, do this: When you use the remaster program from menu it will go through a few steps. You will get a window that the new root directory has been created in root/temp and you can change it. So open that temp directory and delete the root folder that the remaster programme has created and replace it with the root folder of your running system (so, click on home,go up one level and copy the root folder to the root/temp folder. Next screen will handle etc. Do the same with this but delete the hidden file called .xloaded after you had copied it. The resulting remaster should now have all the setting you have had previously and all programmes that you have had installed. So just replace your previous base SFS file with this newly remastered one and delete the old save file. When you boot this up you will have the same system you had but now everything is included (in other words you can actually run without a save file). As soon as you do more modifications, you will once again need a save file to save them...and so on. You can do remaster after remaster if you like. Note: before doing a remaster, you may want to delete or uninstall stuff first otherwise this will be included in the remastered SFS.


Sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

Nic

[snayak]

Thanks Nic. It is really a nice idea. Worth trying out.

By the way, mike suggested

I don't have a save file but use archives of the ramdisk contents so keeping tidy is a very good idea. My saves are usually 5 - 50MB uncompressed . Add on programs are all sfs. Messy programs like browsers need close scrutiny to tame their habits.

How to archive ramdisk?
If browser is made sfs, how NOT to save browser accumulated temporary files/cache/virus etc in savefile?

Do we have any application that can detect the directories/files which need to be saved in savefile, and allows us to choose among them to save before we shutdown?

Sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

[mikeb]

How to archive ramdisk?
If browser is made sfs, how NOT to save browser accumulated temporary files/cache/virus etc in savefile?

Part one is a bit of a story .. my point was that I make save space saving a priority due to keep ram usage low...well I am a bit of a minimalist

The second point .... there have been users who do things like move and link the browser profile either out of the save file or into /tmp or use a tmpfs so everything disappears at shutdown.
There are posts on the subject but basically move and symlink back either manually or with a simple script.
I tend to just use browser preferences with the aim of minimising space and choose what gets stored.

mike

[fobq]

hi,
I still don't understand something.
When I make Gmap open "File system" it loads me the following directories:
usr, root, lib, bin, sbin, var, etc, opt. It is 677.5 MB all together.
(the biger ones are: usr 360 MB, root 216 MB, lib 84 MB)

I have a 1 GB savefile (.2fs) on the 4 GB sd1 partition (it is my home). There is 716 MB of free space in my savefile, so 308 MB is just occupied.

Where is that 667.5MB stored?
Which directories does that 308 MB consist of?

[mikeb]

The file system in its uncompressed form that resides in the sfs... the save file will also be included in that figure.

In other words a 150MB sfs is composed of ~350-450MB of files.
If you made a full install thats how big it would become.

mike

[fobq]

hi,
my savefile is continuously growing, however I install nothing. My firefox and seamonkey cache is set to 30 MB, I have a folder for downloads in /home. Yesterday, I had 730 MB of 1GB free space, now just 525.
It is interesting, because I am looking at my previous post in this topic: the size of "File system" in Gdmap was 667.5 MB I had 716MB free space.
Now, the "File system" is less - 658MB but I have less free space - 525MB
What is responsible for this growing? How could I prevent it?

[mikeb]

OK point gdmap into /initrd/pup_rw or if you have usb flash setup try /initrd/pup_ro1 as well.

See whats big....

Someone mentioned that sometimes running a file system check might recover space using the pfix=fsck option at boot

mike