"Marc Nozell (m...@nozell.com)" <noz...@gmail.com> writes: > > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio <k...@jots.org> wrote: > > Actually, a confluence of events has me playing with my Sheeva today. By > > sheer circumstance, I > > - Need to replace my bedroom computer with something quiet > > - Bought a 10-port powered USB hub > > - Acquired, gratis, a USB-to-VGA converter > > - Saw a video of someone running Gnome off of a Sheeva plug. > > > > It seemed like the perfect setup for my Sheeva to step in. Unfortunately, > > for one, as of 9.10(?), Ubuntu no longer supports the Sheeva; they compile > > for a higher CPU than the Sheeva has. Then, my 16 GB SD card gave up the > > ghost. So I'm installing Debian on a newly acquired card; what with only > > 512 MB of RAM, I don't anticipate that I'll be making huge inroads into > > graphical editing or anything, but assuming I get it working as a > > "workstation," it'll just be DamnCool(tm). > > pro-tip: to save your SD card from excessive writes, look at > flashybrid. It works well for me.
Actually...: Your SD card is almost certainly already doing wear-levelling internally, and can (barring it `just being a bad card', which happens) be expected to last for *years* even if you write to it with unusually high frequency. Contrary to popular belief, modern flash disks have *way better reliability* than HDDs. I should still have a copy of the explanation that I gave the last time someone asked me about this (should have posted it online...), but the ultra-short version is: if you do the math, you'll be surprised-- most of what people `know' about flash memory, which is based on what was true with the state of the art 20 years ago, is basically superstition at this point. *Embedded* flash memory is somewhat of a different story, but then it's more or less standard to implement software wear-levelling layers between raw flash and anything that will be generating writes. So, pro-tip: *do* consider putting a swap partition on your (wear-levelled) flash disk; you're probably not going to end up using it as `virtual memory' in the `extra scratch-space for programs to thrash and trash' sense, but it'll allow allocated-but-*idle* segments memory to be swapped-out and make room for disk-buffer/-cache. And that can speed things up..., and even reduce writes to disk :) -- "Don't be afraid to ask (λf.((λx.xx) (λr.f(rr))))." _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/