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Error booting from 8 gig memory stick
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Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 26 Jan 2013, 21:20 ]
Post subject:  Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

I have a message that pops up on boot up that says only OMB memory remaining. Delete extra files. Or something to that effect. I did a boot fix and that seemed to help for a few boot ups but then it came back. My memory stick is 8 GB and says 4.5 GB free space available.

Thanks,

Tim

Author:  Moe [ 26 Jan 2013, 22:27 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Zephyr's Aura wrote:
I have a message that pops up on boot up that says only OMB memory remaining. <snip>My memory stick is 8 GB and says 4.5 GB free space available.


The default configuration is for a 4GB USB. This means the persistent files are allocated 100MB for root and 500MB for your /home. Those files contain the entire 'writeable' part of the system. Approx. 1.3GB of the system is 'read only'.

The memory that you're running out of is in the persistent files
that contain the file structure for the operating system and your personal configurations, web cache, and a thousand little files from the addition of software, personal configuration and or just plain internet cache from the variety of different applications that are now busting the seams of the 100MB and/or 500MB files.

Your "personal" data occupies the free space after the "read only" and the read/write casper-rw and home-rw.

In your case, the remaining 4.5GB of space remaining on your stick is divied up with the Directories Desktop; Charts; Videos; Pictures; Music...etc.. however you choose...but looks like it's mostly empty.

Your persistent files are too small for the way you use your system.

This is one of the limitations of an operating system on a USB in the form of a LiveCD. Initially there isn't much space to work with and then the size of these files cannot be dynamically altered.

However, fear not.

Larger configurations are are possible by deleting the casper-rw and home-rw after you have edited the syslinux.cfg file located on the USB in the syslinux directory.

Locate the file and open it with a text editor; down the page about line 45 you will see:
Code:
label fix
menu label reset persistent data
kernel /casper/vmlinuz
append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz autopersistent root_size=100 home_size=500 max_loop=32 ip=frommedia quiet splash fix

Edit root_size=100 and home_size=500.

Edit the file to whatever you think you will need; save; reboot; using the fix command as you did in the past and new persistent files will be created....and more memory.

It's still the same system, but for larger USBs, or tailor mades, the persistent files can be altered in size.

This allows the addition of additional software packages, configuration, and firefox cache, for example. Below are some suggestions. The size increase is just a guess, because it depends how the person uses the USB.

4- root_size=100 home_size=500
8- root_size=250 home_size=1000
16-root_size=500 home_size=1500
32-root_size=1000 home_size=2500

If the person uses the USB differently than it could be changed....if needed. You get to decide.

The complete system on the USB with the settings above is approx.::
4- 1.9GB
8- 2.55GB
16- 3.3GB
32-4.8GB

The additional space on those respective USBs is taken up by the directories:
DESKTOP
GRIB
LIBRARY
PICTURES
DOCUMENTS
CHARTS
DOWNLOADS
MUSIC
VIDEOS

These directories will expand to whatever data is placed on them. They will not be deleted if the casper-rw and home-rw files are deleted and the system is reset. A 4GB USB with cm93 leaves about 500MB left for other data.

So, theoretically on a 32GB USB someone would have approx 26.somethingGBs of space to allocate however s/he wishes in Desktop, charts, download, music,. etc... However, because the USB is formated FAT32 for cross compatibility with Windows there is a 4GB/file size limit.

If someone uses the "Make a Copy For a Friend" application it only copies the system and has the option of copying the CHARTS. All other data must be moved over by hand.

Good luck.

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 15 Feb 2013, 18:23 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Thanks, I'll give that a try.

Zephyr's Aura

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 17 Feb 2013, 09:26 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

It took me a while to find the files but all is working well at this time.

Thanks a lot for the help!

Tim

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 18 Feb 2013, 16:00 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Since I removed the two files casper-rw and home-rw I loose all of the information saved in open CPN and several of the other programs. Now when I restart my computer it's lightning fast but I have to go in and reset my configuration in open CPN and I loose my places on google earth. I also loose my configuration on my Internet connections. Was I supposed to rebuild these files?

Thanks again,

Tim

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 18 Feb 2013, 16:12 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Ok it was my screw up I forgot the boot fix. All is well now.

Thanks again,

Tim

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 22 Feb 2013, 11:00 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Hi Moe,

After all your hard work getting the GPS working... OpenCPN just shut down on me. I was creating a route to get from my current location to Beaufort inlet. I rebooted and got the following message.

"Your home folder has only 0MB space left. Delete some files or you may experience problems."

I'm using an 8 GB stick and followed your suggestion increasing to root_size=250 home_size=1000.

I have only been using the system since the 18th, about five days, and it's already full. I can increase it again but I'm thinking that something is filling the memory faster than normal.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tim

Author:  Moe [ 22 Feb 2013, 17:23 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Find out where it's going....
Code:
sudo du -h /home/$USER | sort -nr | less

This translates as; Acting as a superuser show the disk usage in human readable form of the home directory of the currently logged in user...sort it numerically in reverse order (big to little)...and then display the output in the terminal as a window that I can move about (<space> forward; <b> back; or arrow keys to move line by line) and then <q> when I'm done.

Take a look for the problem child and/or any surprises.

Author:  splax [ 08 Mar 2013, 07:49 ]
Post subject:  using 8 GB SD card/stick

Hello,
I downloaded a clean .iso yesterday and installed on a 8 GB SD card. Last night I downloaded ENC chart zip files and extracted them them to the charts>ENC folder. I tried using the charts, but Open CPN kept crashing to the start-up screen. I see only 2.49 GB used on the card, so page file space is available. Please advise.

Author:  Moe [ 08 Mar 2013, 13:27 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Did you increase the size of your root and home persistent files as was discussed in this thread in the posts above?

Did you "fix" it after modifying the syslinux.cfg file?

Are you running any thing else concurrently?

Execute the command df -h in the terminal and find out if you have any space left on your persistent files.

Author:  splax [ 22 Mar 2013, 22:17 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

:shock: Sorry to be so long getting back to you Moe. I did adjust the sizes in the syslinux.cfg, and it did quit crashing, but I have to relist the chart directories. I remembered to delete the .rw files, but still have unstable system properties and have to reconfigure charts and routes. What is the "boot fix" that keeps being mentioned? I will try the df command. :geek:

Author:  splax [ 22 Mar 2013, 22:44 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

The df command generated output I could not copy and paste, but it indicated the /dev/loop0 uses 100% of the 1.2 GB alloted. Everything else is at about 1% usage. :?:

Author:  Moe [ 23 Mar 2013, 03:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

What I think is going on is you don't have your persistent files (the 'fix' part). They are the strructures that allow the system to function like a 'normal' computer rather than a system that is running off a CD. Let me get settled and I'll walk you through the steps of creating a larger system for your 8GB stick

The 100% ccapacity of the /dev/loop is what it should be. This is the size of the "read only filesystem"...the CD part of Navigatrix. It is the immutable part that makes the system 'bulletproof'...if you screw up absolutely everything except putting your USB in a fire you can rebuild the entire system from this 'chunk'.

Copying and pasting to/from the terminal takes some extra keystrokes. It's a pain. I use the mouse and the menu because I don't like to type. If I can't be bothered using the mouse, or it it's going to a text file anyway I'll do something like:

df -h > ~/Desktop/filesystem.txt

...which executes the command and places it in a text file on my desktop.

Author:  Moe [ 24 Mar 2013, 09:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Take a fresh install of Navigatrix on an 8GB stick and run df -h (display file system in -human readalbe form) it leaves something under the parrot like:
Attachment:
8GB-default.png
8GB-default.png [ 33.34 KiB | Viewed 33550 times ]
...more information than you can shake a stick at.

It shows the type; size; how much is used; what space is left in that file system; the percentage of use in that file system;...and where that file system is attached to the rest of the structure. It is frequently talked about like a 'tree'. The root (/) is the base to which all others are connected. Everything else branches off the root, or something connected to the root.

[ For the moment ignore the last five lines. They are 'virtual' filesystems and sized to be half (1/2) of the RAM on the computer. This particular machine has 2GB RAM...really, ignore them for the moment. ]

However this traditional simplicity becomes a twisted hall of mirrors in order for a "LiveCD" system to function both as something that works like a CD but also is something that can be modified.

A default installation is on a USB stick that is attached to the computer at /dev/sda1 (/device/scsi device...the first one; first partition)

As you see the USB stick as it weighs in at 7.5GB (on an 8GB stick...computer arithmetic adds up even when it doesn't make sense). 1.9GBs are used; 5.6GBs leftover; 26% capacity...and it is all mounted at /cdrom. This is where you go (/cdrom) to see what's on the stick.

Now of that 1.9GBs, 1.3GBs is in a read-only-file-system on a loop (think spinning CD) appropriately branching from the root at /rofs. This contains all the software for the system. It is cleverly packed away in a compressed form. When you, or the computer, need to use something from there that part is un-packed and read. No one can modify this package...but it can be unpacked and read fairly rapidly. People love to say it's decompressed "on the fly". Unpacked it takes up about three times the space.

A computer could run on everything in that 1.3GB read-only compressed package. So far we have something that functions like a CD; it just doesn't take up much room. But it has limited function....it's just a CD on a stick.

This is where it all starts to get mind-bendingly slick...in order to have a system that can be modified we need some structures that will accept those changes AND be there the next time the computer (and the system) is started.

ENTER: The persistent file.

To fully function on a USB stick Navigatrix uses two persistent files; casper-rw and home-rw. They are overlays to the read-only files system. Like a transparent overlay on a book or map they change the nature of the information presented underneath. And as their names suggest, they are files that can be 'read' and 'written'. home-rw overlays the /home directory branch and casper-rw overlays the root...that is by default everything else. Remember, /home is where your heart is and / is...well, everything else. You see them mounted in their respective places. One is 10% full and the other is 5%.

With these two files you can modify the system and come back the next time and those changes will be there. You can delete them and the underlying information is still there. But they are a static size. This is the primary reason people have "memory issues". They fill up one or the other persistent file and the world falls apart.

The default setting is casper-rw is 100MBs and home-rw is 500MBs. When we do the math that 1.3 + .1 + .5 = 1.9GBs on a bare bones system and coincidentally the size of the file system of /dev/sda1 mounted at /cdrom.

As you see here.....
Attachment:
8GB-whats-really-there.png
8GB-whats-really-there.png [ 101.93 KiB | Viewed 33550 times ]
Once again I don't really get computer arithmetic...but there you go. The LIBRARY directory contains some information but CHARTS; DESKTOP through to PICTURES and then including VIDEOS are empty directories symbolically linked to the file structure...I'll get to that in a moment.

If you dive into the casper directory at the top of the File Manager listing you will see a large file called filesystem.squashfs that contains the entire system in compressed form and a few other files that make the thing go as a LiveCD. The very large file is the contents of the read-only filesystem.

Stepping back to /cdrom is the syslinux directory which has some preliminary road map instructions..and miscellaneous other 'stuff'.....and there you have it...about 5GB worth of information and software in a tidy 1.9GB package that fits on a 4GB USB stick.

Less than 2GBs on a 4GB stick! The optimist says "Cool, it's half empty." The pessimist says "What happens with the other 2GBs?"

This is where the empty direcories come into play. On a 4GB stick a person has about 2GBs for personal data that can go into those directories. They are separate from the rest of the system but magically (symbolically) linked to to the user's home (e.g, /home/nx/Desktop) However, it doesn't take long, after you add your charts, a few picture, etc. you are soon riding on the rims.

There are two (2) reasons for the symbolic links and size of the persistent files being done this way.

1) If you mangle the system you can rebuild without loosing your personal data.

2) All 4GB sticks or SD cards are not 4GBs. Some are smaller...some a lot smaller. By symbolically linking data directories to a 500MB /home people with more normal 4GB devices can use nearly all of their space without being limited by an installer that puts the same system on a device with less capacity....or the inverse...those with marginal capacity can install on their device and not have it fail because it's 10KB short.

And, 3) Added flexibility. Situations change. People have differing styles, purposes and applications in the use of a computer system. This seems to be a 'best fit' solution to most people.

As you might have noticed from the first screenshot in this post I have the good fortune that my 4GB stick is nearly 4GBs larger than other 4GB sticks and I have another 5.6GBs available. Depending how someone uses their machine; if Navigatrix is on a 4, 8 16...even 32GB stick would influence what would happen.

It's speculation until you encounter specific cases. For example, My Aunt Elaine might never run into a space problem with 100MB root and 500MB for home because she would use the system differently than another who fills up the space in a half hour....ten minutes.; which is possible. I've done it.

If you need more space in root, home or both you create a larger casper-rw and/or home-rw. It is a simple matter of telling the machine.

Open the File Manager go to /cdrom; dive into the syslinux directory and locate syslinux.cfg.

Open it with the Text Editor and scroll down to about line 45 you will see:
Code:
label fix
menu label reset persistent data
kernel /casper/vmlinuz
append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz autopersistent root_size=100 home_size=500 max_loop=32 ip=frommedia quiet splash fix

Edit root_size=100 and home_size=500.

Change them to what values you think you need. It depends how you use the machine. It doesn't necessarily have to change...but it can.

A rule of thumb...and only as a guideline

4- root_size=100 home_size=500
8- root_size=250 home_size=1000
16-root_size=500 home_size=1500
32-root_size=1000 home_size=2500

I repeat, if the person uses the USB differently than it can be changed....if needed. You decide.

Save your edited syslinux.cfg file. Use the File Manager to delete the two files casper-rw and home-rw.

Reboot

When the BLUE splash screen appears with eagle ray in the lower right corner appears hit the <esc> key. You've gotta be fast. You have 1 second...but still plenty of time to hit the <esc> key because you know it's coming.

For good measure I hit it repeatedly until the screen turns black...and stays black.

In the upper left hand corner the word

boot:


will appear.

Type in:

fix

and hit the <Enter> key.

....go get a beer. The machine will rebuild the persistent files casper-rw and home-rw to your specifications.

When it is done....
Attachment:
8GB-larger-persistent.png
8GB-larger-persistent.png [ 31.86 KiB | Viewed 33549 times ]
The root (/) and /home have more space and the rest of the numbers fall in line with the computer's way of adding up the numbers. This allows more room for additional modifications, programs...whatever I thought I might need.

If I then load up the stick with a couple of gigabytes worth of charts, music, photos....
Attachment:
8GB-loaded.png
8GB-loaded.png [ 30.47 KiB | Viewed 33549 times ]
You see they take space but do not choke up either my root, or home. I can add another 2GBs of junk and root and home will still have that new car smell.

Author:  splax [ 25 Mar 2013, 17:59 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Hello, :)
Last night I saw you had replied, and tried the "boot fix" (<esc>, fix, <enter> when booting). Unfortunately the machine created the home.rw and root.rw with 500,100 settings. I booted back to windows and edited the syslinux.cfg file and the root size and home size were 250,1000 ! I searched using <ctrl>f and found the root, home pair was listed 5 times. I changed all to size 250,1000, deleted the root.rw and home.rw files, then used the "boot fix" process,<esc>, fix, <enter> when booting. It seems to have corrected the situation since my settings and information now persist from one session to the next.

Thanks. 8-)

Author:  Moe [ 25 Mar 2013, 23:06 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Glad to hear it....

Yeah, the default "fix" setting is 100/500. Which is down about line number 45....really line #48, but the setting begins at #45. If it's not changed...nothing changes. As long as you can boot to Navigatrix you don't need to boot into another system to change it.

If you look at syslinux.cfg again there are 4 other settings that specify root/home size; as you found out. They have menu labels that would appear if the menu system were enabled...which it's not. (It's a 10 second PITA that 99.44% of the users would never use more than once.)

label nx (line #25; the default boot)

label es (line #30; the Spanish boot)

label en (line #35; to revert to English boot)

label old (line #50; boot for old graphics card compatibility)

Only "fix" will re-build the persistent files. It is the only one that needs to be changed, but changing them all you have the situation well and truly covered..

There are two other options nop and memtest. The first boots just like a CD with no persistence. The second is a memory test you can run if you are absolutely bored out of your skull. It works very well. You eventually remember you have something more important to do.

Any of these can be run by entering the label at the boot:

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 17 Apr 2013, 19:32 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Moe wrote:
Find out where it's going....
Code:
sudo du -h /home/$USER | sort -nr | less

This translates as; Acting as a superuser show the disk usage in human readable form of the home directory of the currently logged in user...sort it numerically in reverse order (big to little)...and then display the output in the terminal as a window that I can move about (<space> forward; <b> back; or arrow keys to move line by line) and then <q> when I'm done.

Take a look for the problem child and/or any surprises.


Hi Moe,

Here is an example...

964K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/A/83
936K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/D/98
900K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/E/2F
900K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/2/F9
900K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/1/46
840K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/startupCache
752K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/0/AA
688K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/6/55
587M /home/nx
564K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/ScrapBook/data/20130331194457
476K /home/nx/.gstreamer-0.10
424K /home/nx/.macromedia
420K /home/nx/.macromedia/Flash_Player
372K /home/nx/.gconf
352K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/ScrapBook/data/20130331194538
328M /home/nx/.opencpn
326M /home/nx/.opencpn/SENC
304K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/7/2C
304K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/3/DA
304K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/2/25
296K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/2/7A
288K /home/nx/.config
276K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/6/FE
264K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/OfflineCache
260K /home/nx/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects
256K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/6/5C
256K /home/nx/.macromedia/Flash_Player/#SharedObjects/EKPPC6R6
256K /home/nx/.gconf/apps
252K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/B/5B
248K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/2/6D
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/7/91
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/6/EB
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/5/93
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/5/3E
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/5/20
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/1/6C
240K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/0/45
232K /home/nx/.mozilla/firefox/jqriljgu.default/Cache/3/20
224K /home/nx/.sylpheed-2.0

These seem to be small files and don't seem to be the problem

I have also found the I keep getting in the media folder ...
SYSTEM RESERVED
SYSTEM RESERVED_
USB20FD
USB20FD_
USB20FD__
USB20FD___
USB20FD____

I've tried to delete these and get a access denied warning and can not delete them.

Thanks again for your help

Tim

Author:  Moe [ 17 Apr 2013, 23:14 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Zephyr's Aura wrote:
I have also found the I keep getting in the media folder ...
SYSTEM RESERVED
SYSTEM RESERVED_
USB20FD
USB20FD_
USB20FD__
USB20FD___
USB20FD____


System Reserved and usb20fd are windows names. I've no idea what they are other than system reserved and 5 copies of a driver....or how they got there.

You can give yourself permission to remove the files

sudo rm /media/SYSTEM* /media/USB20FD*

The asterisk * is a wildcard and will match anything that come after it....so if you don't want to delete your file /media/SYSTEM TO MAKE MILLIONS TAXFREE.pdf you will have to do something else.

Another method of getting superpowers is the File Manager. Go to Tools> Open Current Folder as Root....and go wild.

Author:  Zephyr's Aura [ 18 Apr 2013, 07:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Error booting from 8 gig memory stick

Thanks Moe! I'll give these new super powes a try.

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