chroot = out of memory ?

I can't afford to free-up my main-box: with 130MB RAM, running Mandrk 9, knl: 2.4*,
but I want a 2.6 kernel installation, for geda, which seems to need it.

So, I've punished myself with trying to [first taste] install Deb-Lenny,
kernel 2.6x on a 586, 30 MB RAM spare-box.

I'm being screwed-in-the-corner for ever step I take:
- this time of years is bad, for News queries, 'cos new students waste resource !
- no mc to navigate the dir-tree and cp, mv, edit..etc, so I have to juggle VTs.
Can anybody tell how to set PS1 to show the VT number [I tried /etc/profile]
and failed ?
- to use the [essential for me] mc & gpm I've tried to chroot to instalations
which do have these utilities; but Debian-Lenny shows 'out of memory'!
OTOH when running Mandrk9 on the same small RAM box I can chroot
without problems -from the partition with kde to the partition with gnome.

Q. is chroot a memory-hog with kernel 2.6* , or is there some thing wrong with
my Debian-lenny installation ?

Q. Since I'm used to seeing the rdev plus what I've mounted, like:-
# df ==
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6 2.0G 1.7G 216M 89% /
/dev/hda11 958M 293M 617M 33% /mnt/cdrom
/dev/hda12 1.9G 404M 1.4G 23% /mnt/mul
/dev/hda14 7.4G 4.8G 2.2G 69% /mnt/Fed14
/dev/hda16 3.8G 599M 3.2G 16% /mnt/Deb16
/dev/hda3 972M 36M 886M 4% /mnt/disk
why does Debian Lenny show:
<normal-rdev>
tmpfs .............0% ....../lib/init/rw < ------?
udev .............3%......./dev
tmpfs .............0% ....../dev/shm < ------?
??
This looks as if the install/boot is not complete ?

Thanks for answers to any of my questions.

no.top.post@gmail.com wrote:

chroot doesn't need memory other than the one used by the target shell...
But, chroot'ing to a different environment may cause weird failures if the running kernel is not compatible with the GLIBC of the new environment.
e.g. If you boot with a 2.4 kernel and chroot in a new environment with a recent GLIBC compiled for a 2.6 kernel with NPTL & co, than, results are unpredictable.
In that case, you may copy the new kernel to your /boot partition, and bootwith it... If the old system cannot boot with the new kernel (recent kernels try to preserve backward binary compatibility but some old features may be removed or disabled, such as devfs), you may either boot directly on thenew system, or, if it's not easily accessible, you may create a small initrd with a busybox and few utils to access the directory and chroot() in it.

--
André Gillibert

On Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:57:15 +0000, no.top.post wrote:

If using bash, then you need to set PS1 in bashrc, not /etc/profile
which is only sourced for login shells.


You could always try doing an exec chroot to ensure that the chroot
shell replaces the first shell and so that you do not have a shell
within a shell running.

no.top.post@gmail.com writes:




So, install it!

But since you run Mandriva, why not put a newer Mandriva onto your
system. They you will presumably understant it better.



Why in the world would you do that? Just install the programs (mc and
gpm)
..

Unruh <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote:

Since the system has only 30 (or 32) megabytes of RAM, I don't think a recent Mandriva can run on that, because the initrd may be too big.
<http://www.mandriva.com/archives/en/linux/spring/system_requirements.html>
It's a shame that noawadays, everybody lies about "min sys requirements". I'm almost sure Mandriva would run with 128MB of RAM, but 32 MB may be too small.

I don't know if it's easy to boot a Mandriva without initrd.

--
André Gillibert

In comp.os.linux.misc no.top.post@gmail.com wrote:

You might want to save youyrself a whole lot of hassle
and spend 50 bucks or so at a garage sale/ebal/scrapyard
and upgrade to a more modern system. Cramming modern usable
OS onto a 30MB footprint is possible but will be ugly at best.

Alternately you could look at an older version, a relatively
raw distribution, freebsd, or the like.

Stan

no.top.post@gmail.com wrote:

<snip>

Absurd to try it with that little RAM

either add more RAM

or pull the drive out of your old machine
and pop in in your better one


then install your OS on the 2nd drive and dual boot

On Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:57:15 +0000, no.top.post wrote:


Not nearly enough RAM. I'd want at least 128MB for a default commandline
only system. Maybe, if you really leaned it out, you could get by with
64MB. For a GUI like XFCE or IceWM, 256MB and a leaned out system would
work.

I run a very customized--system file by system file, app by app--Debian
Etch on a 500MHz, 192MB Thinkpad 240X with XFCE. Nothing is on it or
running in the background unless it's absolutely required and necessary.
It works adequately for my purposes--e-mail, ftp, SSH, word processing,
and light web browsing. However, to free up more RAM, I'm thinking about
ditching XFCE in favor of IceWM.


Stef

philo <philo@privacy.invalid> writes:






Almost always impossible since they are different types of memory.
Note that you can probably still get some of the old memory, only is is
10-100 times as expensive as the newest type.

Unruh <unruh-spam@physics.ubc.ca> wrote:

If you talk about moving RAM from the 130MB (128?) computer to the 30MB (32?) computer, then, it's not what philo suggested.
He suggested moving the hard drive from the old machine to the better one.

--
André Gillibert