[I had sent this to debian-boot already, but to don't get it lost, I sent it to the bug. Note that there were changes to boot-installer/parameters.xml in the meantime, so maybe this diff doesn't apply cleanly anymore.]
On Sat, 09 Dec 2006 20:58:54 +0100 Frans Pop wrote: > I agree that a section about lowmem installations for the manual would be > a good idea. Volunteers for writing it? ... A proposal for this. Comments welcome! (I have overruled my intention to put this in the appendix; there are no d-i modules descriptions in appendix at the moment, so maybe that's unsuitable there.) Holger
--- parameters.xml 2006-12-16 13:16:04.000000000 +0100 +++ parameters-new.xml 2006-12-16 12:58:47.000000000 +0100 @@ -137,6 +137,14 @@ media. On architectures which support it, the graphical installer uses the <userinput>gtk</userinput> frontend. +<note><para> + +If you have not enough memory installed on your system to use the +graphical installer (about 128MB), you will automatically fall back to the +text based installer. + +</para></note> + </para></listitem> </varlistentry>
--- lowmem.xml 2006-12-16 13:16:04.000000000 +0100 +++ lowmem-new.xml 2006-12-16 13:44:01.000000000 +0100 @@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ <!-- $Id: lowmem.xml 16990 2004-06-19 22:09:49Z fjpop-guest $ --> <sect3 id="lowmem"> - <title>Check available memory</title> + <title>Check available memory / low memory mode</title> <para> @@ -14,8 +14,49 @@ </para><para> During a low memory install, not all components will be available. -One of the limitations is that you won't be able to choose a -language for the installation. +Firstly you won't be able to choose a language for the installation, means +you have to install with an english interface. The installed system will +of course be localized. + +<!-- Not sure if there are such components or will be in the future. +</para><para> + +The following modules of the installer will also not be available during +low memory install: abc, xyz. +--> + +</para><para> + +It is extremely recommended, that you create a large-scaled swap partition on +your harddrive if you have a system where memory is rare: swap is used as +virtual RAM, so you can use more memory as you have physically installed. +The installer makes use of swap as early as possible and of course swap is +also useful for your daily work with the installed system, so it's a good +investigation. If you are not low on disc space, create 100MB swap or even +more. + +</para><para> + +Many components aren't automatically loaded when the installer is in low memory +mode, but you can load them manually (choose <guimenuitem>Load installer +components from CD</guimenuitem> from the menu). +In case of problems like the system freezing and/or +<quote>Out of memory</quote> messages on vt4, there are two ways to go: +creating a larger swap partition may be useful, if the problem occures after +swap is activated (this is done during disc partitioning, when you have your +partitioning scheme ready and write the changes to disc). If this does not +solve your problem, you should try to leave one or more of that additional +components out. + +</para><para> + +Example: it has been reported that creating a big ext3 filesystem fails +in low memory mode, when swap is too small. If larger swap doesn't help you, +you can create that filesystem as ext2 (which is a default installer module) +and complete installation. (ext3 creation is such an additional component and +it needs rughly more RAM compared to ext2 creation due to journal generation). +Maybe you will be able to switch that ext2 filesystem to ext3 from the +installed system later. </para> - </sect3> \ No newline at end of file. + </sect3>