Brainstorm

Brainstorm: N900 - 'Save Me' - Disaster Recovery tool

Posted on 2010-01-11 13:58 UTC by Greg Roberts. Status: Under consideration, Categories: Utilities.

Good day everyone! - whilst i wait for Brainstorm to stop giving me network errors i thought i'd write this out.

The inital idea with thanks to benny1967 and ColonelKilkenny

The general aim of this brainstorming idea is to create/develop a 'Save Me' function for people who have run out of rootfs space, it could possibly have other functions too.

Now, i am very aware that people should not delve into the development or testing repositories without the sexy official warnings - but as they are available, they will get used. That means, as much as we warn people, and they know it is their responsibility..... They are still going to do it, and the questions for support will end up in these forums.

So the Brainstorm proposal, is for a 'Save me' tool/application (Or even a choice in the bootloader application! - possibly)

The save me tool should be able to, for now:

Recover space in the rootfs area
Be simple to understand for most users

I agree extra functionality to fix other problems could be added, but for now i would suggest the basic function is to save a user by removing apps/free up space.

Some suggestions are as follows

Remove all extras-development applications
Remove selected development applications
Remove all unused packages (A bit like a windows file cleanuip wizard i suppose!)
Throw out some output to the user showing current status - therefore allowing feedback to this forum/clever people, if there are still problems.

(Possibly forcing a reboot after the un-installs etc)

Please visit the Talk Thread here

Solutions for this brainstorm

Solution #1: Remove all extras-development applications

Posted on 2010-01-11 14:03 UTC by Greg Roberts.

Find and remove all applications still in development mode

Solution #2: Remove selected development applications

Posted on 2010-01-11 14:31 UTC by Greg Roberts.

List all currently installed development applications.

Allow the users to remove selected development applications.

Solution #3: Remove all unused packages (A bit like a windows file cleanuip wizard i suppose!)

Posted on 2010-01-11 14:39 UTC by Greg Roberts.

Similar idea to 'apt-get clean' and 'apt-get autoclean' as root in terminal.

It should remove downloaded archive files.

Solution #4: Downgrade/re-grade applications

Posted on 2010-01-11 14:51 UTC by Greg Roberts.

Suggestions from ColonelKilkenny

Ubuntu has this script called ppa-purge in repos and that might be a good reference if someone starts to build script for N900.
Ppa-purge downgrades all packages coming from PPA's (Personal Package Archive) to standard ubuntu packages (i.e. to more stable and tested version) so it's not exactly the thing benny was after but in a way it's similar.

http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~xorg-ed...d%3A/ppa-purge

Solution #5: Vre Solution

Posted on 2010-01-11 14:59 UTC by Greg Roberts.

Sorry i don't understand it - but hopefully techies will :) (From noobmonkey)

What I have noticed that when the space goes full, I cannot use the application manager to remove anything. The dpkg from commandline also fails as there is no space. I solved this problem simply by:

# cd /var/lib
# mv dpkg /home/var_lib_dpkg
# ln -s /home/var_lib_dpkg dpkg

Now dpkg will always work and it is not necessary to clear space to get it working. Saved my a** few times

Solution #6: Prevent a problem

Posted on 2010-01-12 20:54 UTC by Leonid Yegoshin.

Disable installation of regular packets to /, at least allows it in special cases.

Not simple way, but it is possible and that was done at least twice in Unix live.

First of all - divide system timelife in three parts

- boot-and-mount (including network setup and access daemons like sshd). After this a system is functional, at least in signle user mode.

- basic-GUI-start - X11 and window manager functional, basic CLI tool (system,networking,filesystem) working, but may be no games, and "user" applications.

- full run - all daemons are up any /opt is available.

Next - move 3rd stage application to /opt, via moving the whole trees to it (like /usr/local).

Final - use /var space as a temporary space to keep a stuff for fast access (I assume / is faster then /home)

... and allow new application in that optified directories only... at least after serious consideration which usualy could be done for daemons. That also can save some battery because daemons may be divided by two classes - realtime one and not real-time which could be called from kernel in some CPU spikes (once per ... sec?) - what would definitely save a lot of battery, process of starting CPU from cold/warm to hot is energy consuming.

Register