Bristol Digest, Vol 588, Issue 3

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: Boot using an SSD (Mik Phelps)
2. Re: Boot using an SSD (Allison Pell)
3. Re: Boot using an SSD (nick robinson)
4. Re: Boot using an SSD (david)
5. Re: Boot using an SSD (Shane McEwan)
6. Re: Boot using an SSD (Alex Butcher)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2015 17:36:47 +0000
From: Mik Phelps <ha1ry.g1t@mypostoffice.co.uk>
To: bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID: <54CFB5AF.8040400@mypostoffice.co.uk>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

All
many thanks for the advice about booting from an SSD Drive.
I think I remember seeing about someone having problems with booting from an SSD; but with my memory
the way it is these days it might well have been some time ago :-S

I have also contacted the Builder who is assembling the machine and he is going to install a second
identical Server HDD to be able to run as a RAID array, given that the advice on that makes much sense.
Apparently there are spaces in the hardware frame for more HDs, so should there be enough SATA ports
and PSU capability, then perhaps later on.......

All of the drives being fitted are brand new without Windoze or anything else hopefully ever having
been installed, so with any luck then there should be no partitioning or other data to remove before
my doing my Linux installation.

as I'm not familiar with the HD settings suggested, it looks like I've got quite a lot of reading to
do following those links/pointers about how things can be best set up as well!

thanks again
Mik



------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2015 23:32:46 +0000
From: Allison Pell <trucker.allikat@gmail.com>
To: bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID: <54D0091E.1090402@gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

Don't put swap on an SSD, as such frequent read/writes can kill it.

Either you need swap (in which case you should put it on something whose
life isn't measured in read/write cycles), or switch the swap off.

Allison Pell (back to lurking)



------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 07:48:54 +0000
From: nick robinson <nick@njrobinson.net>
To: Bristol and Bath Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID:
<CADo8qK7LBi8-i1_Ka-VwP-c37H6=B4OTPgFcL_ky7cCio0Kpdg@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

I used to have grub set up to boot my multiple OS's, with the pc I bought
recently I pick a boot disk from bios when starting it up.
if you want multiple OS's installed on the same disk then you'll have to
set grub up. Opensuse's installer is pretty good and sorting that out for
you.
The only issue you may run into is trying to boot off of BTRFS, which I
think was the default option but did quite work for booting until recently.
BTRFS is often used for SSD's which is where you may have read about
booting problems?

The other thing to look at is the new BIOS protection system UEFI. You have
to disable it to install Linux as far as I'm aware

On 2 February 2015 at 17:36, Mik Phelps <ha1ry.g1t@mypostoffice.co.uk>
wrote:

> All
> many thanks for the advice about booting from an SSD Drive.
> I think I remember seeing about someone having problems with booting from
> an SSD; but with my memory the way it is these days it might well have been
> some time ago :-S
>
> I have also contacted the Builder who is assembling the machine and he is
> going to install a second identical Server HDD to be able to run as a RAID
> array, given that the advice on that makes much sense.
> Apparently there are spaces in the hardware frame for more HDs, so should
> there be enough SATA ports and PSU capability, then perhaps later on.......
>
> All of the drives being fitted are brand new without Windoze or anything
> else hopefully ever having been installed, so with any luck then there
> should be no partitioning or other data to remove before my doing my Linux
> installation.
>
> as I'm not familiar with the HD settings suggested, it looks like I've got
> quite a lot of reading to do following those links/pointers about how
> things can be best set up as well!
>
> thanks again
> Mik
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bristol mailing list
> Bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/bristol
>
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Message: 4
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2015 09:32:59 +0000
From: david <david@avoncliff.com>
To: bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID: <54D095CB.4070900@avoncliff.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed

On 02/02/15 23:32, Allison Pell wrote:
> Don't put swap on an SSD, as such frequent read/writes can kill it.
>
> Either you need swap (in which case you should put it on something whose
> life isn't measured in read/write cycles), or switch the swap off.
>
> Allison Pell (back to lurking)
>
I have always thought of swap as a safety barrier, it is there to
prevent crashes but if it is doing anything I need to find out why and
stop it.
Now writes to my email file folders, they must be several / hour 24/7......
David





------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2015 10:57:25 +0000
From: Shane McEwan <shane@mcewan.id.au>
To: bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID: <54D0A995.6000203@mcewan.id.au>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

On 03/02/15 09:32, david wrote:
> I have always thought of swap as a safety barrier, it is there to
> prevent crashes but if it is doing anything I need to find out why and
> stop it.

I prefer the Out Of Memory manager to simply kill off the process using
all the memory so that I can have a responsive system again. As soon as
you start swapping your machine is likely to be unbearably slow, if it
responds at all, so you're not going to be able to do much except either
wait for your swap to fill as well then OOM can do its thing or hit the
reset button.

Shane.



------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2015 10:57:46 +0000 (GMT)
From: Alex Butcher <lug@assursys.co.uk>
To: Bristol and Bath Linux User Group <bristol@mailman.lug.org.uk>
Subject: Re: [bristol] Boot using an SSD
Message-ID:
<alpine.LFD.2.11.1502031054470.14987@sbhezbfg.of5.nffheflf.cev>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

On Tue, 3 Feb 2015, nick robinson wrote:

> I used to have grub set up to boot my multiple OS's, with the pc I bought
> recently I pick a boot disk from bios when starting it up.if you want
> multiple OS's installed on the same disk then you'll have to set grub up.
> Opensuse's installer is pretty good and sorting that out for you.
> The only issue you may run into is trying to boot off of BTRFS, which I
> think was the default option but did quite work for booting until recently.
> BTRFS is often used for SSD's which is where you may have read about booting
> problems?

There's no reason to boot from btrfs when you can have a well-supported
filesystem (e.g. ext2/3/4) for /boot and then springboard into a
less-well-supported filesystem for the root filesystem.

> The other thing to look at is the new BIOS protection system UEFI. You have
> to disable it to install Linux as far as I'm aware

Linux can be installed with a UEFI system partition etc. I've only done it a
couple of times so far, though.

Best Regards,
Alex



------------------------------

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