colinux-users

[coLinux-users] q: dynamic sized image & memory sharing.

[Chan K. H. <cha...@gm...>]

Hi,

2 questions:

1) dynamic sized images.
Can images be dynamically sized?
ie: a file having the root file system only actually occupy 1GB hdd 
space temporarily (but is supposed to be an 80GB hdd).
I've also learnt that linux is capable of mounting a filesystem that is 
backed by a file.
ie: use dd to create a file called /tmp/myfs, having size of say 10GB; 
/tmp/myfs can then be mounted & formatted to ext2fs.
Is there a way to make this dynamically sized?
I'm looking for something similar to what's in VMWare (option to only 
consume required disk space later).

2) memory sharing.
My laptop has 4GB memory.
Can both Windows & coLinux just assume it both has 4GB memory?
Say if an application under Windows takes up 3GB memory, then only 1GB 
will be available for coLinux.
Can this be done?
Am wondering if this option is available instead of making coLinux take 
up a fixed memory of say 2GB, making memory unavailable to my other 
Windows apps. This also makes memory from Windows unavailable to coLinux 
when my coLinux needs more than 2GB.

Thanks & best regards,

KarHeng

Re: [coLinux-users] q: dynamic sized image & memory sharing.

[Paolo M. <pao...@gm...>]

1) No, it is not possible. You need a new cobd.
2) I'm not sure if colinux alloc all the memory you have required at
the startup ... I don't know these details ;=)

Paolo


On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Chan Kar Heng <cha...@gm...> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> 2 questions:
>
> 1) dynamic sized images.
> Can images be dynamically sized?
> ie: a file having the root file system only actually occupy 1GB hdd
> space temporarily (but is supposed to be an 80GB hdd).
> I've also learnt that linux is capable of mounting a filesystem that is
> backed by a file.
> ie: use dd to create a file called /tmp/myfs, having size of say 10GB;
> /tmp/myfs can then be mounted & formatted to ext2fs.
> Is there a way to make this dynamically sized?
> I'm looking for something similar to what's in VMWare (option to only
> consume required disk space later).
>
> 2) memory sharing.
> My laptop has 4GB memory.
> Can both Windows & coLinux just assume it both has 4GB memory?
> Say if an application under Windows takes up 3GB memory, then only 1GB
> will be available for coLinux.
> Can this be done?
> Am wondering if this option is available instead of making coLinux take
> up a fixed memory of say 2GB, making memory unavailable to my other
> Windows apps. This also makes memory from Windows unavailable to coLinux
> when my coLinux needs more than 2GB.
>
> Thanks & best regards,
>
> KarHeng
>

Re: [coLinux-users] q: dynamic sized image & memory sharing.

[Henry N. <hen...@ar...>]

Hello,

1)
you can use mkFile.exe with option -s for sparse instead dd. Then the
size of image file will be use only on require, and you can create
images bigger as your hard disk. Of curse, you can only use size up to
your free disk space.
See http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/MkFile

2)
coLinux allocates memory on require. You can see it in the performance
monitor of Windows task manager.
If coLinux is idle and no application is running, then the unused memory
was given back to Windows.

Of curse, if a windows application eats all your memory, then coLinux
becomes only the rest.
But remember: We talk here about the physical memory for drivers.
Typically Applications uses only virtual memory and this memory can be
swapped out to disk.

Henry


On 05.07.2011 17:48, Paolo Minazzi wrote:
> 1) No, it is not possible. You need a new cobd.
> 2) I'm not sure if colinux alloc all the memory you have required at
> the startup ... I don't know these details ;=)
>
> Paolo
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Chan Kar Heng <cha...@gm...> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> 2 questions:
>>
>> 1) dynamic sized images.
>> Can images be dynamically sized?
>> ie: a file having the root file system only actually occupy 1GB hdd
>> space temporarily (but is supposed to be an 80GB hdd).
>> I've also learnt that linux is capable of mounting a filesystem that is
>> backed by a file.
>> ie: use dd to create a file called /tmp/myfs, having size of say 10GB;
>> /tmp/myfs can then be mounted & formatted to ext2fs.
>> Is there a way to make this dynamically sized?
>> I'm looking for something similar to what's in VMWare (option to only
>> consume required disk space later).
>>
>> 2) memory sharing.
>> My laptop has 4GB memory.
>> Can both Windows & coLinux just assume it both has 4GB memory?
>> Say if an application under Windows takes up 3GB memory, then only 1GB
>> will be available for coLinux.
>> Can this be done?
>> Am wondering if this option is available instead of making coLinux take
>> up a fixed memory of say 2GB, making memory unavailable to my other
>> Windows apps. This also makes memory from Windows unavailable to coLinux
>> when my coLinux needs more than 2GB.
>>
>> Thanks & best regards,
>>
>> KarHeng

Re: [coLinux-users] q: dynamic sized image & memory sharing.

[Chan K. H. <cha...@gm...>]

Thanks Henry!

Very useful info!!

1) The word I had to look for was sparse file!
Completely didn't know about it.
& I used to create disk images using dd or other tools too.
Another person suggested I use sparse files too!
Passed me this link.

http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/664

2) Ah, this is a very important piece of info indeed!
Thanks!
What I might do then, is set coLinux mem=2048 by default.
I suppose my Windows apps will still have some memory to use along the way.

KarHeng

On 2011-07-06 03:59, Henry Nestler wrote:
> Hello,
>
> 1)
> you can use mkFile.exe with option -s for sparse instead dd. Then the
> size of image file will be use only on require, and you can create
> images bigger as your hard disk. Of curse, you can only use size up to
> your free disk space.
> See http://colinux.wikia.com/wiki/MkFile
>
> 2)
> coLinux allocates memory on require. You can see it in the performance
> monitor of Windows task manager.
> If coLinux is idle and no application is running, then the unused memory
> was given back to Windows.
>
> Of curse, if a windows application eats all your memory, then coLinux
> becomes only the rest.
> But remember: We talk here about the physical memory for drivers.
> Typically Applications uses only virtual memory and this memory can be
> swapped out to disk.
>
> Henry
>
>
> On 05.07.2011 17:48, Paolo Minazzi wrote:
>> 1) No, it is not possible. You need a new cobd.
>> 2) I'm not sure if colinux alloc all the memory you have required at
>> the startup ... I don't know these details ;=)
>>
>> Paolo
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Chan Kar Heng<cha...@gm...>  wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> 2 questions:
>>>
>>> 1) dynamic sized images.
>>> Can images be dynamically sized?
>>> ie: a file having the root file system only actually occupy 1GB hdd
>>> space temporarily (but is supposed to be an 80GB hdd).
>>> I've also learnt that linux is capable of mounting a filesystem that is
>>> backed by a file.
>>> ie: use dd to create a file called /tmp/myfs, having size of say 10GB;
>>> /tmp/myfs can then be mounted&  formatted to ext2fs.
>>> Is there a way to make this dynamically sized?
>>> I'm looking for something similar to what's in VMWare (option to only
>>> consume required disk space later).
>>>
>>> 2) memory sharing.
>>> My laptop has 4GB memory.
>>> Can both Windows&  coLinux just assume it both has 4GB memory?
>>> Say if an application under Windows takes up 3GB memory, then only 1GB
>>> will be available for coLinux.
>>> Can this be done?
>>> Am wondering if this option is available instead of making coLinux take
>>> up a fixed memory of say 2GB, making memory unavailable to my other
>>> Windows apps. This also makes memory from Windows unavailable to coLinux
>>> when my coLinux needs more than 2GB.
>>>
>>> Thanks&  best regards,
>>>
>>> KarHeng
>
>