Modules and performance

[tmsg]

Now that I have Porteus+VirtualBox-on-a-stick up and running, I'm looking into tying some loose ends. Here are two questions but I'm afraid more will follow:-)

1. Number of modules in /modules and overall performance : does the module concept scale well, ie is a Porteus install with say, 30 modules in /modules almost as fast as a Porteus install with only 5? If there's a significant performance hit, it'd probably make sense to merge modules into one or more bigger modules packs (I've just found mergexzm, a script which does that... this actually triggered that question). Perhaps there's even a practical upper limit for the number of modules.

2. Is the save.dat file basically structured like a module? If so, I could clean it up and move the whole thing (or those parts that do not change) to /modules. In what sequence are those modules loaded?

[Ed_P]

I have 20 modules in a separate Modules folder that I add via the extramods= cheatcode. Many are small, >10 KB. My biggest are Wine and my Wine apps which are about 500 KB total and I usually leave them off the flash drives.

If you rename your save.dat file to save.dat.xzm and include it with the extramods= cheatcode when you boot all your changes will present and no further changes will be saved. A good way to demo Porteus to friends or let the grandkids use it.

[brokenman]

1. ... does the module concept scale well
Yes. You can put hunreds of modules in there. Boot time may suffer a little but you are only limited by RAM or 1023 aufs branches.

2 ... Yes a .dat file is the same structure as a module. While in a live session you may also save that session as a module using porteus-settings-centre.

[tmsg]

Thanks, folks. Really appreciate that.

One small thing remains: in what order are modules from /modules (or extramod= folders) loaded? The naming scheme in /base seems to imply that it's based on alphanumerical sorting though I am not totally sure of that being the case for all module folders.

f you rename your save.dat file to save.dat.xzm and include it with the extramods= cheatcode when you boot all your changes will present and no further changes will be saved.

That's a nifty idea. I sometimes use Always fresh mode to test something and wish I could have some of my bits and pieces in place (mostly bash related aliases and configs). So if I save (a subset of) save.dat to a module, put that into some folder and add an extramod= cheatcode to Always fresh... voila!

The more I see the more I like Porteus. Great stuff.

[brokenman]

The order is: base/modules/extramods/rootcopy
The order is alphanumerical.