zRAM and Live CD

[Nio Wiklund]

On 2013-06-16 20:13, Yorvyk wrote:
> As I'd just downloaded the latest daily so I could have a clean install
> for writing the Lubuntu Manual, I thought I'd have a go installing on a
> really on a low RAM machine to see if it made any difference. It appears
> to.
> 
> Compaq Deskpro EP K450 from last century.
> 
> Intel 440BX chip set
> 450 MHz Pentium III
> 256 MiB PC100 RAM
> 6.4 GB HDD (from Oct 1998)
> MGA G200 AGP graphics
> 
> The HDD had a single FAT 32 partition on it. I booted from USB using
> PLOP and selected Try Lubuntu and then ran top. zRAM used 128 MiB RAM
> and already swap was in use, only 4 MiB. I then launched the installer
> from the desktop and the swap usage then started to creep up. I used the
> default settings for the install and set it going. Once the swap on the
> HHD was formated it came into use, adding an additional 360 MiB of
> space. An hour and a quarter later it finished. I was making a meal
> while it carried out the install, but kept popping through to see how it
> was going. The largest swap usage I saw was around 220 MiB and the load
> average was around 3.5-4. As the CPU heat sink uses convection cooling
> it did start to get rather warm, but not too hot to touch.
> 
> Having attempted to use a Live CD on this machine previously to install
> and failing, even with the direct install, I was quite impressed. I
> didn't realise the swap on the HHD would be mounted and used during the
> installation.

This was new to me too.

> 
> 
> 
So zRAM made the difference from 'no go' to 'go' :-)

I guess a previously created and activated swap partition on the HDD
would have a similar effect, but slower, particularly in the beginning
before the zRAM was filled.