Iain Young wrote: > I've seen a number of 'HOWTO' documents on installing Debian on > Compact Flash, but most of the ones I've seen deal with installing > it once, and using stable. > > Has anyone had any experience with using Sid, -and- keeping it > up to date with apt-get update and apt-get upgrade regularly ? > > How long do the modern CF cards last before they need to be replaced ? > Most of these machines would be router || dns || ldap type machines - > ie small, dedicated for a particular job, rather than general purpose, > or graphics. > > Any other tips ? I guess moving syslog to be over the network > might help, but I'd think the apt-getting would probably be more > costly in terms of CF life. > > I'm thinking of migrating my home machines to the Mini-ITX factor, > and so was considering going all the way, and doing without a hard > drive in most cases. I've been running a fairly general-purpose debian system on compact flash for 3 years now. I don't upgrade it every day, but it does follow unstable. I upgraded my CF card from 32 mb to 256 mb recently, but I've had no problems with card failure with my setup. If you're trying to do something similar to me, and it sounds like you are, then you may find the flashybrid package useful: Description: automates use of a flash disk as the root filesystem Flashybrid is a system to help in setting up and managing hybid flash/disk/ram based Debian systems which can run most of the time using only a small flash disk for their root filesystem and do a useful, but limited task (such as being a router, or a PDA, or a rescue system on a USB keydrive). The flash can be as small as 32 mb, though 64 to 256 mb is more comfortable. . When such a system needs to be upgraded or managed, or if you need a full-fledged Debian system temporarily, a flashybrid system converts quickly from an embedded system into a larger, normal Debian system. . Flashybrid supports systems with a supplimental hard disk that holds the parts of Debian that cannot fit on flash. It can also support larger flash-based systems with no supplimental hard disk. It makes it easy to mount a flash disk read-only, to avoid excessive writes to the flash, by storing the volatile parts in a ram disk and rsyncing them back to the flash at shutdown. . To use this package, you will need a 2.4 or greater version of the linux kernel, with tmpfs support built in. -- see shy jo
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