On Friday 24 February 2006 09:00, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Thu, Feb 23, 2006 at 08:31:35PM +1100, Leslie Katz wrote: > > I'm trying to make an ancient laptop run with a mini-distribution, DSL. > > > > As the laptop has only 64MB of RAM, I'm trying to make sure DSL doesn't > > include any unnecessary services or modules when it boots up. > > > > For instance, the laptop has two PCMCIA slots, so on bootup, DSL starts > > cardmgr. However, I have no cards installed, so I configured a file > > which runs on bootup shortly after cardmgr is started immediately to > > stop cardmgr. > > > > Having done what I think I can with services, I've now turned to > > modules. For instance, on bootup, DSL loads the ieee1394 module. > > Do you mean ieee1394 appears in 'lsmod' output even though you > don't have one? I'd call that a bug. Or perhaps the laptop > has ieee1394 support on the m'board, but no physical port? > > > However, the laptop has no Firewire port, so I configured the same file > > what is this file and what do you put in it? modprobe -r .. ? > > > immediately to unload the module. > > > > However, I'm a bit worried about trying to do the same thing with other > > modules. Since the laptop has no USB ports, I thought I could get rid of > > the usbcore and hid modules in the same way I got rid of the ieee1394 > > module, but trying that hung the laptop. > > In the most general case, unloading modules is an unsafe operation. > > A bit of googling reveals that you can put something like > > install evilmodule /bin/true > > in /etc/modprobe.conf > > > Can anyone point me to some source of information which would help me > > decide which, if any, other modules I could safely dispense with? I've > > tried via googling, but had no success. > > If ram is your only concern, I don't think stopping a few modules > from loading is going to help much. You're better off just preventing > various servers/daemons from running.
Actually this is mostly just a waste of effort. Config swap and let the system swap out all the bits it does not need. Of course you may be having fun, learning etc but then learn this too: Unused ram will be swapped out, so you wont see any difference between an unused but full system and an empty system. Newer systems (2.6) are supposed to be better with ram usage, older 2.4 or even 2.2 seem to work better on low ram. Fiddling and testing will show. James James -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
