zRAM and Live CD

[Yorvyk]

On 16/06/13 19:34, Nio Wiklund wrote:
> 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' :-)
>
Yep

> 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.
>

Going to try that with 13.04 just out of curiosity.

I tried repeating what I did earlier with 13.04 and it crashed even when 
going straight to install, as it had done previously. I haven't used the 
Live CD to install for a long time. I nearly always use the Alternate CD.
-- 


Steve