Bug#838919: closed by Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk> (Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard)

[Martin-Éric Racine]

2016-09-29 14:15 GMT+03:00 Ben Hutchings :
> On Wed, 2016-09-28 at 16:20 +0300, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> [...]
>> The thing is, right now, the user has two choices:
>>
>> 1) Trust d-i to make the right choices once, even though more RAM is
>> likely to be added later on, at which point there won't be enough swap
>> to save the suspend image;
>
> Why do you think it's likely?  Hibernation is mostly used on laptops
> and I don't believe they often get RAM upgrades; in fact increasingly
> they don't have even have sockets for RAM upgrades.

Because it's what everyone I know does: as soon as the price for the
type of RAM their computer needs drops, they max it out.

As for hibernate, it in fact is used a lot on office desktops as well.
It was the preferred way of leaving the office at my two previous
workplaces.

>> 2) Perform every tiny step of the partitioning and filesystem creation
>> manually in order to take into consideration the memory controller's
>> maximum supported RAM capacity.
>>
>> The former is inadequate, the later is overkill and honestly beyond
>> the lay user's skills.
>>
>> How about being able to tell the automated partitioning variant how
>> much swap we want, but let it calculate the size of the other
>> partitions by itself?
>
> How many 'lay users' that would be overwhelmed by the partitioner
> nevertheless understand how to upgrade RAM, what swap space is, and why
> they might need more than the default?  I think that's a very small
> group indeed.

Pretty much everyone I know knows how to download the upgrade
instructions from the manufacturer's website, remove a couple of
screws and insert a memory module.  By comparison, very few people I
know understand the intricacies of LVM partitioning.

Martin-Éric

Bug#838919: closed by Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk> (Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard)

[Ben Hutchings]

On Wed, 2016-09-28 at 16:20 +0300, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
[...]
> The thing is, right now, the user has two choices:
> 
> 1) Trust d-i to make the right choices once, even though more RAM is
> likely to be added later on, at which point there won't be enough swap
> to save the suspend image;

Why do you think it's likely?  Hibernation is mostly used on laptops
and I don't believe they often get RAM upgrades; in fact increasingly
they don't have even have sockets for RAM upgrades.

> 2) Perform every tiny step of the partitioning and filesystem creation
> manually in order to take into consideration the memory controller's
> maximum supported RAM capacity.
> 
> The former is inadequate, the later is overkill and honestly beyond
> the lay user's skills.
> 
> How about being able to tell the automated partitioning variant how
> much swap we want, but let it calculate the size of the other
> partitions by itself?

How many 'lay users' that would be overwhelmed by the partitioner
nevertheless understand how to upgrade RAM, what swap space is, and why
they might need more than the default?  I think that's a very small
group indeed.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
If the facts do not conform to your theory, they must be disposed of.


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Bug#838919: closed by Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk> (Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard)

[Martin-Éric Racine]

2016-09-26 19:30 GMT+03:00 Debian Bug Tracking System <ow...@bugs.debian.org>:
> This is an automatic notification regarding your Bug report
> which was filed against the debian-installer package:
>
> #838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max 
> RAM supported by the motherboard
>
> It has been closed by Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk>.
>
> Their explanation is attached below along with your original report.
> If this explanation is unsatisfactory and you have not received a
> better one in a separate message then please contact Ben Hutchings 
> <b...@decadent.org.uk> by
> replying to this email.
>
>
> --
> 838919: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=838919
> Debian Bug Tracking System
> Contact ow...@bugs.debian.org with problems
>
>
> -- Edelleenlähetetty viesti --
> From: Ben Hutchings <b...@decadent.org.uk>
> To: 838919-d...@bugs.debian.org
> Cc:
> Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:27:23 +0100
> Subject: Re: Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition 
> according to max RAM supported by the motherboard
> On Mon, 2016-09-26 at 10:23 -0400, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 05:06:18PM +0300, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
>> >
>> > Package: debian-installer
>> > Severity: wishlist
>> >
>> > As far as I can tell, d-i calculates the size of the swap partition
>> > according to the curently installed amount of RAM.
>> >
>> > Whenever the RAM is upgraded later on, the swap parition no longer
>> > fulfills its intended purpose, in cases when it would be needed to
>> > store hibernate images, since the parition was calculated to store
>> > a much smaller RAM image.
>> >
>> > A more desirable method would be for d-i to use 'dmidecode' to
>> > probe the system's memory controller for the maximum amount of RAM
>> > that is supported and to calculate the swap partition size
>> > according to that.
>>
>> Of course many people never upgrade their ram, and often going beyond 50%
>> of maximum gets very expensive.
>>
>> Also many people never suspend.
>>
>> Also dmidecode is x86 only and some older systems didn't have it, so it
>> wouldn't help the majority of architectures.
>>
>> So while it is an idea, I am not convinced it doesn't actually create
>> problems.
>
> Right, this proposal sounds like it would be worse than the current
> heuristic in general.
>
> A better way to deal with this is to use LVM and leave some space
> unallocated initially so it's possible to grow swap or whatever other
> partition needs it later.

The thing is, right now, the user has two choices:

1) Trust d-i to make the right choices once, even though more RAM is
likely to be added later on, at which point there won't be enough swap
to save the suspend image;
2) Perform every tiny step of the partitioning and filesystem creation
manually in order to take into consideration the memory controller's
maximum supported RAM capacity.

The former is inadequate, the later is overkill and honestly beyond
the lay user's skills.

How about being able to tell the automated partitioning variant how
much swap we want, but let it calculate the size of the other
partitions by itself?

Martin-Éric

Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard

[Hakan Bayındır]

On Monday, September 26, 2016 10:23:02 AM EEST Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 05:06:18PM +0300, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> > Package: debian-installer
> > Severity: wishlist
> > 
> > As far as I can tell, d-i calculates the size of the swap partition
> > according to the curently installed amount of RAM.
> > 
> > Whenever the RAM is upgraded later on, the swap parition no longer
> > fulfills its intended purpose, in cases when it would be needed to store
> > hibernate images, since the parition was calculated to store a much
> > smaller RAM image.
> > 
> > A more desirable method would be for d-i to use 'dmidecode' to probe the
> > system's memory controller for the maximum amount of RAM that is
> > supported and to calculate the swap partition size according to that.
> Of course many people never upgrade their ram, and often going beyond 50%
> of maximum gets very expensive.
> 
> Also many people never suspend.
> 
> Also dmidecode is x86 only and some older systems didn't have it, so it
> wouldn't help the majority of architectures.
> 
> So while it is an idea, I am not convinced it doesn't actually create
> problems.
> 
> Besides I could move the disk to a new system later which could have
> even more ram, so even making it as large as dmidecode says won't solve
> all cases.  I would think that case is at least as likely as maxing out
> the ram in a machine is.

Besides, some servers (and similarly workstations) have exorbitant memory 
capacities. I've managed some servers with 256GB RAM capacity, and since these 
servers were designed for processing roles, they had ~300GB disks. In that 
case, most of the disk will be wasted as swap which may never be used in its 
lifetime.

So in either desktop or server case, dmidecode way looks more problematic. It 
potentially wastes space, and addresses a rare problem.

Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 05:06:18PM +0300, Martin-Éric Racine wrote:
> Package: debian-installer
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> As far as I can tell, d-i calculates the size of the swap partition according 
> to the curently installed amount of RAM.
> 
> Whenever the RAM is upgraded later on, the swap parition no longer fulfills 
> its intended purpose, in cases when it would be needed to store hibernate 
> images, since the parition was calculated to store a much smaller RAM image.
> 
> A more desirable method would be for d-i to use 'dmidecode' to probe the 
> system's memory controller for the maximum amount of RAM that is supported 
> and to calculate the swap partition size according to that.

Of course many people never upgrade their ram, and often going beyond 50%
of maximum gets very expensive.

Also many people never suspend.

Also dmidecode is x86 only and some older systems didn't have it, so it
wouldn't help the majority of architectures.

So while it is an idea, I am not convinced it doesn't actually create
problems.

Besides I could move the disk to a new system later which could have
even more ram, so even making it as large as dmidecode says won't solve
all cases.  I would think that case is at least as likely as maxing out
the ram in a machine is.

-- 
Len Sorensen

Bug#838919: debian-installer: please calculate swap parition according to max RAM supported by the motherboard

[Martin-Éric Racine]

Package: debian-installer
Severity: wishlist

As far as I can tell, d-i calculates the size of the swap partition according 
to the curently installed amount of RAM.

Whenever the RAM is upgraded later on, the swap parition no longer fulfills its 
intended purpose, in cases when it would be needed to store hibernate images, 
since the parition was calculated to store a much smaller RAM image.

A more desirable method would be for d-i to use 'dmidecode' to probe the 
system's memory controller for the maximum amount of RAM that is supported and 
to calculate the swap partition size according to that.

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