[App_rpt-users] Pickle linux, Beagleboard, and MicroSD flash longevity

[Phil N6TCT]

Doesn't look like that to me, at least not out of the box.  "df" shows:

root at peekskill:/var/log# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mmcblk0p2        3.6G  1.4G  2.0G  41% /
none                  244M  180K  244M   1% /dev
none                  245M     0  245M   0% /dev/shm
none                  245M   40K  245M   1% /var/run
none                  245M     0  245M   0% /var/lock
none                  245M     0  245M   0% /lib/init/rw

So yes, /var/run and /var/lock appear to be something special (though
not clear to me they are ram disks), but /var/log (which is where most
of the writing takes place) is definitely on the micro-sd card:

root at peekskill:/# cd /var/log/asterisk
root at peekskill:/var/log/asterisk# df -h .
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mmcblk0p2        3.6G  1.4G  2.0G  41% /

Phil

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Jim Duuuude <telesistant at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think that you will find that the pickle distro already does that. It has
> the typically
> 'volatile' files in a ram disk (like /var/log , /var/run, etc) for exactly
> that reason.
>
> JIM WB6NIL
>
>> Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2011 10:27:56 -0700
>> From: phil.n6tct at gmail.com
>> To: app_rpt-users at ohnosec.org
>> Subject: [App_rpt-users] Pickle linux, Beagleboard, and MicroSD flash
>> longevity
>>
>> I am building a remote, solar-powered, mountaintop repeater based
>> around the BeagleBoard and app_rpt running the Pickle distribution.
>> The mountaintop is not vehicle accessible and is a significant hike to
>> get to -- oh, and it's an eight-hour drive from where I live just to
>> get to the base of the mountain -- so we'd like to minimize equipment
>> failures and resulting truck rolls. :-) Two questions for the group:
>>
>> 1. Does anyone have any experience with the longevity of the MicroSD
>> flash memory card used on the Beagleboard with Pickle Linux? Flash
>> memory has a limited number of write cycles and, although the flash
>> cards include some wear leveling, I'm wondering what the implications
>> are for flash card replacement. Obviously, this will depend on how
>> much writing is being done, but any real-world data, experience, or
>> anecdotes would be welcome.
>>
>> 2. Is there an easy way to set up a ram disk, even a small ram disk (a
>> few megabytes), under Pickle? The majority of writing we're going to
>> be doing will be log files, and we have a network connection from the
>> mountaintop to civilization -- but the network connection is not
>> guaranteed to be up all the time. If we could write to ram disk and
>> then copy to civilization when the network is up, that would avoid
>> having to write to flash at all.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Phil, N6TCT
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