On Mittwoch 06 Mai 2009, Mark Haney wrote: > Volker Armin Hemmann wrote: > > On Mittwoch 06 Mai 2009, Mark Haney wrote: > >> Duncan wrote: > >>> Consider pointing PORTAGE_TMPDIR at a tmpfs. > >>> > >>> The idea is based on the fact that everything portage does in its > >>> tmpdir (/var/tmp by default) is temporary, erased as soon as it's done > >>> emerging that package. Since tmpfs uses swap backed memory, > >>> worst-case, it has to write to swap -- that is, to disk, which is where > >>> it would otherwise be writing ALL the temporary files. With memory > >>> access so much faster than disk access, every file that's erased before > >>> it hits disk saves time, and it can make a BIG difference in emerge > >>> times. > >> > >> Duncan, you talk about tmpfs and I'm suddenly interested in trying this > >> out. My question is, how much space do you allocate for the tmpfs? I > >> know it'll fall back to swap if I'm out of space there, but what works > >> well for you? I have (currently) 1GB RAM on this system, but I'm > >> getting ready to order more to get me to 4GB. > > > > 2gb. That is enough for almost everything. Not enough for openoffice. > > tmpfs 2,0G 3,2M 2,0G 1% /var/tmp/portage > > tmpfs 1,0G 116K 1,0G 1% /tmp > > Now how is that going to play out when I only have 1GB of RAM?
with 1gb of ram you don't do it. If you have 4gb - then yes. With 1gb. No. Because even if tempfs can be shoved into swap it would be still slower.
