usb stick light comes on every 5 minutes

[mbutts]

hello everyone, i just downloaded puppy 2.10 last week and have it up and running with the save to usb stick option. right now im running it on a panasonic toughbook cf-48 with cdrw dvd drive. im trying the usb stick first and will try the write to cd later. i notice with the laptop lid closed, every 5 minutes the usb stick led light comes on for about 30-40 seconds. ( i might note that the usb port is on the back of the puter and cant be seen with the screen up in the view position) im curious what its doing. is it reading, writing or what? and what is it reading and or writing? finally, if i go to the cd or dvd save function, does it do the same thing as with the usb stickand do something every 5 minutes? tnx, martin ps, love what ive seen puppy does so far!

[Gn2]

Live mode - using usb to store the save file ?
As a guess - if the usb device is used to store (instead of a hard drive partition)

~ Dependent on amount of physical RAM - it may be swapping ?
Or: If mounted - periodically the drive may be scanned
in same manner as any file search will start (from root)

There would be no other need to access otherwise, until @ shutdown time.

Below may aid in understanding Puppy inners:
(If incorrect am sure someone will soon correct)

http://www.puppyos.com/development/howpuppyworks.html

HTH

[Pizzasgood]

When booting from a usb stick, Puppy should only write data to it ever thirty minutes and on shutdown. I don't know why it lights up, but it shouldn't be from write cycles.

With a cd it won't do anything to the cd unless you tell it to, so you can remove it after booting and just put it back when ready to save. Unless you don't have enough ram to load everything off it, in which case it will need the cd to read the programs from.