Some ideas on Tim's script

[Ian Lepore]

On Wed, 2013-01-30 at 11:01 -0500, Brett Wynkoop wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:24:58 -0500
> George Rosamond <george at ceetonetechnology.com> wrote:
> 
> > I mentioned this to Tim offline a while back, but I have some quick 
> > thoughts on options for the scripts.
> > 
> > A bunch of us in NYC*BUG have been hacking on Soekris and Alix boards 
> > with i386 for a long while, which lays the basis for some of these
> > thoughts.
> > 
> > But first, with 8G images, I had to adjust the config.sh's SD_SIZE
> > below 7900 for Kingston SD Cards to fit.  I can give more specifics
> > if desired.  Anyone else experience that?
> > 
> 
> No problem with my microsd card, but I do not recall what brand it is
> and I do not want to shut down the board to check.
> 

Look in /var/run/dmesg.boot for this line:

  mmcsd0: 1876MB <SD SU02G 8.0 SN 3406901 MFG 09/2010 by 48 SD>

That's the manufacturer info (SD = sandisk in this case).  The number
(48, its base-10) is the manufacturer ID, which you can look up on
websites when you don't recognize the initials.

> > In terms of /etc/fstab, I think adding tmpfs to the kernel would be 
> > useful.  Without it, using md(4) for /var/log, /tmp and /var/tmp is 
> > certainly a nice way to minimize disk writes.
> > 
> 
> I agree that tmpfs in the kernel would be good for the above.
> 
> > It might also make sense to add rc_debug="YES" and rc_info="YES" to
> > the default /etc/rc.conf.  Most users are testing right now, and it's
> > only logical for the pool of people hacking on them.
> > 
> > And maybe to add the relevant ntpdate(8) settings to /etc/rc.conf.
> 
> One of the first things I did was put ntpdate into startup, but for
> boards not connected to the net that will create a several second hang.

Better than ntpdate is to set ntpd_enable and ntpd_sync_on_start to YES.

-- Ian