Making a RAM disk larger than 8 Mbytesmodified: 29 Jun 2006 |
For MINIX 3 go to http://www.minix3.org. (Minix 3 released Oct 2005) |
You can set a boot parameter to have Minix create a RAM disk larger than 8 Mbytes, and if you don't copy the root file system to the RAM disk you can then use mkfs to make a file system that uses all the RAM you have reserved. But if you try to copy from a standard floppy disk to a large RAM disk, you will find that only 8 Mbytes will actually be used. The reason is that the file system you copy from the floppy disk has only one block, 1024 bytes or 8192 bits, for its zone bitmap. The solution to the 8MB RAM disk limit is to enlarge the zone bitmap on the floppy disk by supplying an appropriate option to the mkfs program.
Here is Kees Bot's explanation of how to do it:
If you want to create a file system on a floppy that has many bitmap blocks then this should work:
mkfs -t /dev/fd0 65535 de -w /dev/fd0 (Type PageDown, arrow down to reach the V1 or V2 "number of zones" field with 65535 in it. Type 's' 1440 ENTER.)Now you have a floppy file system that FS can expand up to 65536 blocks. (I used 65535 instead of 65536 to make it easier to find and change. With 65536 you'll see 0 and 1 at the V2 field.)
If you use a script to fill a floppy then change the mkfs as above, and run 'de' later. Maybe you can even forget about 'de', I don't think FS minds if it hits the end of the image device early. It's just not right somehow.
When a file system is created using mkfs a number of i-nodes proportional to the size of the medium are created if you don't explicitly specify a number with the -i option.
These are the default mkfs actions:
size i-nodes blocks free used fd-free ----- ------- ------ ------ -------- 720K 240 700 20 1024K 352 997 27 1200K 400 1170 30 1440K 480 1405 35 1405 2048K 688 2000 48 1392 4096K 1376 4005 91 1349 8192K 2736 8016 176 1264 16384K 5472 16036 348 1092 32768K 8192 32427 521 919 65536K 10928 64840 696 744
The last column above is the number of free blocks you will have if you create the file system data structures on a floppy disk.
Here are actual i-node usages of a few systems:
pre-install 2.0.3 system (root.mnx + usr.mnx): 229 a complete installed Minix 2.0.3 dosminix 3170 minix1.hampshire (2.0.2, 1.9G disk) total: 10747 " / + /usr + /usr/local only: 6968
A Minix 2.0.4 install disk uses 359 (of 480) + 694 (of 720) blocks on /dev/fd0p0 and /dev/fd0p2, for a total of 1053 blocks. So we can easily make an install disk that initializes a 16M RAM disk with 5472 i-nodes.
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