Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Chris McQuistion]

There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.  Those
would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.

You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
card, restored from backup, and call it a day.

I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do (just
back them up and replace them when they die.)

On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should last
for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.

Chris

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:

> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>
> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
> is not my forte anymore.
>
> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the last
> few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come out. I
> have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>
> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much like
> an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>
> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
> setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
> create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
> card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
> leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
> 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
> that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
> other/better way to do this?
>
> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let it
> sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories of
> servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come to
> mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part of a
> decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive
> distro that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of
> longevity in the RPi nodes I am deploying.
>
> Thoughts?
> Suggestions?
> Questions?
>
> Bruce
>
> --
> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
> Trustee for AA4VU
> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club
>
> --
> --
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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Michael L]

I must say this sounds interesting to someone who doesn't know much about
Linux and doesn't like being tied to Microsoft.  Can anyone tell me what
purpose these multiple RPi's serve because I've been thinking I should buy
one or two just to find out.
  M

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion 
wrote:

> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>
> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>
> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do (just
> back them up and replace them when they die.)
>
> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should last
> for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>
> Chris
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>
>> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
>> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>>
>> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
>> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
>> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
>> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
>> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
>> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
>> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
>> is not my forte anymore.
>>
>> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the last
>> few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come out. I
>> have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
>> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
>> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
>> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
>> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>>
>> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much like
>> an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
>> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
>> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>>
>> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
>> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
>> setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
>> create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
>> card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
>> leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
>> 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
>> that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
>> other/better way to do this?
>>
>> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let
>> it sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories
>> of servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come
>> to mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part
>> of a decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive
>> distro that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of
>> longevity in the RPi nodes I am deploying.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>> Suggestions?
>> Questions?
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> --
>> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
>> Trustee for AA4VU
>> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club
>>
>> --
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
>> "NLUG" group.
>> To post to this group, send email to nlug-talk@googlegroups.com
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>> nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
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>
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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Chris McQuistion]

I run "OpenElec " as dedicated Kodi boxes at my house
for movies, TV and music.  The Raspberry Pi 3 has bluetooth included, so my
Harmony Remotes work with OpenElec over bluetooth (which is more reliable
and faster than IR control).

I've played with a few other things on Raspberry Pi's at home, but this is
what I'm using them for right now and I really like them.

Chris

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Michael L  wrote:

> I must say this sounds interesting to someone who doesn't know much about
> Linux and doesn't like being tied to Microsoft.  Can anyone tell me what
> purpose these multiple RPi's serve because I've been thinking I should buy
> one or two just to find out.
>   M
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion 
> wrote:
>
>> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
>> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>>
>> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
>> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
>> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>>
>> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do
>> (just back them up and replace them when they die.)
>>
>> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should
>> last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>>
>>> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
>>> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>>>
>>> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
>>> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
>>> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
>>> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
>>> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
>>> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
>>> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
>>> is not my forte anymore.
>>>
>>> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the
>>> last few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come
>>> out. I have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
>>> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
>>> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
>>> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
>>> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>>>
>>> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much
>>> like an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
>>> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
>>> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>>>
>>> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
>>> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
>>> setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
>>> create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
>>> card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
>>> leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
>>> 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
>>> that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
>>> other/better way to do this?
>>>
>>> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let
>>> it sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories
>>> of servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come
>>> to mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part
>>> of a decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive
>>> distro that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of
>>> longevity in the RPi nodes I am deploying.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>> Suggestions?
>>> Questions?
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> --
>>> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
>>> Trustee for AA4VU
>>> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "NLUG" group.
>>> To post to this group, send email to nlug-talk@googlegroups.com
>>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
>>> nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com
>>> For more options, visit this group at
>>> http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
>>>
>>> ---
>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>>> Groups "NLUG" group.
>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>>> an email to nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>>>
>>
>> --
>> --

Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Michael L]

Since I do video production, it will come in handy having other options to
play back audio and video.

Since the Pi is so small I was wondering what is the smallest most mobile
video screen available for the RPi3 and can I run the whole thing, screen
and all off a 12v cigarette lighter outlet?

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Chris McQuistion 
wrote:

> I run "OpenElec " as dedicated Kodi boxes at my
> house for movies, TV and music.  The Raspberry Pi 3 has bluetooth included,
> so my Harmony Remotes work with OpenElec over bluetooth (which is more
> reliable and faster than IR control).
>
> I've played with a few other things on Raspberry Pi's at home, but this is
> what I'm using them for right now and I really like them.
>
> Chris
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Michael L 
> wrote:
>
>> I must say this sounds interesting to someone who doesn't know much about
>> Linux and doesn't like being tied to Microsoft.  Can anyone tell me what
>> purpose these multiple RPi's serve because I've been thinking I should buy
>> one or two just to find out.
>>   M
>>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion > > wrote:
>>
>>> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
>>> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>>>
>>> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
>>> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
>>> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>>>
>>> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do
>>> (just back them up and replace them when they die.)
>>>
>>> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should
>>> last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>>>
 I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
 occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.

 I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
 these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
 and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
 the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
 it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
 do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
 better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
 is not my forte anymore.

 That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the
 last few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come
 out. I have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
 project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
 monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
 use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
 the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.

 I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much
 like an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
 partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
 rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.

 My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
 distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
 setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
 create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
 card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
 leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
 that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
 other/better way to do this?

 I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let
 it sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories
 of servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come
 to mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part
 of a decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive
 distro that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of
 longevity in the RPi nodes I am deploying.

 Thoughts?
 Suggestions?
 Questions?

 Bruce

 --
 Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
 Trustee for AA4VU
 Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club

 --
 --
 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
 Groups "NLUG" group.
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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Curt Lundgren]

The Raspberry Pi people have a 7" capacitive touchpanel at 800x480
resolution:  https://www.adafruit.com/products/2718 - I have one, it's
critical on angle but looks good, and the touchpanel stuff works very
nicely.

They also have one about the size of the Pi itself:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/2441 - haven't seen or played with one.

The Pi wants something more than an amp, and of course displays like power
too.  There's nothing to keep you from using vehicle power, though I would
recommend having a function to shut down the unit rather than just pulling
the plug.  SD cards don't tend to like losing power when they're writing.

If you don't mind slumming, the 3.5mm plug outputs stereo audio and
composite video, either NTSC or PAL.

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:07 PM, Michael L  wrote:

> Since I do video production, it will come in handy having other options to
> play back audio and video.
>
> Since the Pi is so small I was wondering what is the smallest most mobile
> video screen available for the RPi3 and can I run the whole thing, screen
> and all off a 12v cigarette lighter outlet?
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Chris McQuistion 
> wrote:
>
>> I run "OpenElec " as dedicated Kodi boxes at my
>> house for movies, TV and music.  The Raspberry Pi 3 has bluetooth included,
>> so my Harmony Remotes work with OpenElec over bluetooth (which is more
>> reliable and faster than IR control).
>>
>> I've played with a few other things on Raspberry Pi's at home, but this
>> is what I'm using them for right now and I really like them.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:47 PM, Michael L 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I must say this sounds interesting to someone who doesn't know much
>>> about Linux and doesn't like being tied to Microsoft.  Can anyone tell me
>>> what purpose these multiple RPi's serve because I've been thinking I should
>>> buy one or two just to find out.
>>>   M
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion <
>>> cmcquist...@watkins.edu> wrote:
>>>
 There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
 Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.

 You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
 periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
 card, restored from backup, and call it a day.

 I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do
 (just back them up and replace them when they die.)

 On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should
 last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.

 Chris

 On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin 
 wrote:

> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are
> used occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>
> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the 
> software
> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days 
> I
> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding 
> edge
> is not my forte anymore.
>
> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the
> last few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come
> out. I have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on 
> a
> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>
> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much
> like an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>
> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi
> the distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
> setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
> create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
> card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
> leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
> 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
> that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
> other/better way to

Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Bruce Martin]

If these were being used at home that is the more practical solution. However 
the projects I am working on will deploy the RPi in places like the top floor 
of a building I do not have unlimited access to and in a locked room that I do 
not have the key. Or at a tower site a couple of hours drive away. 
I will have the original image files made so it will just be an issue of 
re-imaging a new SD card. I just want to be sure it is a long time between 
incidents of needing to do that.

Thanks for your input.

Bruce

> On May 4, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion  wrote:
> 
> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.  Those 
> would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
> 
> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make periodic 
> backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD card, restored 
> from backup, and call it a day.
> 
> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do (just 
> back them up and replace them when they die.)
> 
> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should last 
> for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
> 
> Chris
> 
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  > wrote:
> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used 
> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
> 
> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux these 
> days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software and 
> updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download the 
> source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled it 
> after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I do 
> not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten better 
> at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge is not 
> my forte anymore.
> 
> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the last few 
> years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come out. I have 
> two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a project to 
> help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed monitoring nodes. 
> One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the use of SD cards. 
> Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card the life of a card 
> seems to be less than a year or so.
> 
> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much like an 
> SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only partition it 
> to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the rest of the card 
> free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
> 
> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the 
> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try setting 
> things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to create an 
> image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB card. Is there 
> a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and leave the rest as 
> unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the 32GB card and image 
> each partition separately from the 8GB card and write that image to a 
> specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some other/better way to do 
> this?
> 
> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let it 
> sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories of 
> servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come to 
> mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part of a 
> decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive distro 
> that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of longevity in 
> the RPi nodes I am deploying.
> 
> Thoughts?
> Suggestions?
> Questions?
> 
> Bruce
> 
> --
> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
> Trustee for AA4VU
> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club

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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Curt Lundgren]

Where SD life is concerned, we have an original Pi (700 MHz single core)
that's been running since April of 2014.  No problems observed, and the run
time has been limited only be UPS life (Hint:  A UPS that is issuing forth
smoke is not a good UPS.)  I've had one at home running continuously with
650+ days of uptime.  I have yet to lose an SD card on a running Raspberry
Pi.  In any application where I need to frequently write transient data I
use a ramdisk and only the data for the long haul gets written to SD.

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:

> If these were being used at home that is the more practical solution.
> However the projects I am working on will deploy the RPi in places like the
> top floor of a building I do not have unlimited access to and in a locked
> room that I do not have the key. Or at a tower site a couple of hours drive
> away.
> I will have the original image files made so it will just be an issue of
> re-imaging a new SD card. I just want to be sure it is a long time between
> incidents of needing to do that.
>
> Thanks for your input.
>
> Bruce
>
> On May 4, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion 
> wrote:
>
> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>
> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>
> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do (just
> back them up and replace them when they die.)
>
> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should last
> for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>
> Chris
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>
>> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
>> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>>
>> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
>> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
>> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
>> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
>> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
>> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
>> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
>> is not my forte anymore.
>>
>> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the last
>> few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come out. I
>> have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
>> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
>> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
>> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
>> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>>
>> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much like
>> an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
>> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
>> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>>
>> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
>> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try
>> setting things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to
>> create an image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB
>> card. Is there a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and
>> leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the
>> 32GB card and image each partition separately from the 8GB card and write
>> that image to a specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some
>> other/better way to do this?
>>
>> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let
>> it sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories
>> of servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come
>> to mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part
>> of a decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive
>> distro that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of
>> longevity in the RPi nodes I am deploying.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>> Suggestions?
>> Questions?
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> --
>> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
>> Trustee for AA4VU
>> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club
>>
>
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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[David R. Wilson]

Hello Bruce,

On an Odroid C2 I have had one of the cards to be corrupt.  I ended up
finding the corrupt file and renaming it, then created a new one.  That
apparently was caused by a power failure.  I would rather duplicate the
card and have a spare available in the event one becomes corrupt.

I have not tried to divide up the storage on the 32 Gb microSD card yet.

The Odroid C2:
http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php 

Dave KU4B

On Wed, 2016-05-04 at 13:04 -0500, Bruce Martin wrote:
> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used 
> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
> 
> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux these 
> days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software and 
> updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download the 
> source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled it 
> after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I do 
> not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten better 
> at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge is not 
> my forte anymore.
> 
> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the last few 
> years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come out. I have 
> two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a project to 
> help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed monitoring nodes. 
> One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the use of SD cards. 
> Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card the life of a card 
> seems to be less than a year or so. 
> 
> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much like an 
> SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only partition it 
> to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the rest of the card 
> free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
> 
> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the 
> distribution expands itself to use up the entire card. I want to try setting 
> things up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I want to create an 
> image of the card and then write that image to a 16GB or 32GB card. Is there 
> a parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used and leave the rest as 
> unformatted? Do I need to create the partitions on the 32GB card and image 
> each partition separately from the 8GB card and write that image to a 
> specific partition on the 32GB card? Is there some other/better way to do 
> this?
> 
> I want to try to get to the point of being able to set up a RPi and let it 
> sit and run for years and not have to redo the card every year. Stories of 
> servers stuck in closets or left in a wall void during remodeling come to 
> mind. We had an APRS Igate node at Vanderbilt that ran the better part of a 
> decade without a purposeful reboot that was running on a floppy drive distro 
> that Sean Jewett and a few others worked on. I want that kind of longevity in 
> the RPi nodes I am deploying.
> 
> Thoughts?
> Suggestions?
> Questions?
> 
> Bruce
> 
> -- 
> Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
> Trustee for AA4VU
> Vanderbilt University Amateur Radio Club
> 
> -- 


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Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[David R. Wilson]

Hello Michael,

There is a lot of uses for these things.  Within the limits (in my case)
of 64Gb it works for most anything I would want to do with a laptop.  
the difference (in the case of the Raspberry Pi and the Odroid) is these
things take much less power to operate than a laptop and are much
smaller.

In my case I have a few things I am working on that will be on more than
one of these things.  One is to use this for a DSP server for the SDR
radios I am working on.  Eventually we want to use these on the mesh
network http://usercontent.aredn.org/K/5/K5DLQ/livemap.html as we
install these at the MTEARS sites ( http://mtears.org/ ) to control the
sites and pass custom audio and control capabilities between systems.

There are numerous advantages to these over laptops.  No fans, 5 watts
(or less) of power, no hard drive etc.  In the case of the Odroid it
handles video as well as my laptop or desktop machine.  The only
disadvantage for my specific hardware is the limitation of 2GB of RAM.
If I have an external display hooked up (HDMI) the display will use much
more power than the computer. 

Dave

On Wed, 2016-05-04 at 13:47 -0500, Michael L wrote:
> I must say this sounds interesting to someone who doesn't know much
> about Linux and doesn't like being tied to Microsoft.  Can anyone tell
> me what purpose these multiple RPi's serve because I've been thinking
> I should buy one or two just to find out.
> 
>   M
> 
> 
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion
>  wrote:
> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear
> leveling.  Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras
> and such.
> 
> 
> You could go that route or you could just image your system
> and make periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it
> with another $10 SD card, restored from backup, and call it a
> day.
> 
> 
> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan
> to do (just back them up and replace them when they die.)
> 
> 
> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card
> should last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
> 
> 
> Chris
> 
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin
>  wrote:
> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux
> commands that are used occasionally but like rm need
> to be used carefully.
> 
> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it
> come stop Linux these days. I use the bistro as it is
> and usually install only the software and updates that
> are part of the distribution. In the past I did
> download the source of the latest version of software
> i wanted to run and compiled it after tweaking the
> makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the
> distributions have gotten better at keeping things
> reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge is
> not my forte anymore.
> 
> That being said I have been playing around with
> Raspberry Pi for the last few years. I tend to buy two
> or three of each version as they come out. I have two
> deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking
> on a project to help some friends out by setting up
> some Broadband Speed monitoring nodes. One of the
> shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the use of
> SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing
> to the card the life of a card seems to be less than a
> year or so.
> 
> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear
> leveling much like an SSD does. With this in mind I
> want to set up an SD card but only partition it to use
> a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear
> leveling use.
> 
> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a
> card for the RPi the distribution expands itself to
> use up the entire card. I want to try setting things
> up on an 8GB car. After everything is configured I
> want to create an image of the card and then write
> that image to a 16GB or 32GB card. Is there a
> parameter in dd to limit how much of the card is used
> and leave the rest as unformatted? Do I need to create
> the partit

Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Andrew Farnsworth]

I will second Curt's option on the ram drive.  Things were very tight on
the Pi 1 and got better with the Pi 2 & 3.  Especially in headless mode, it
is pretty easy to allocate 256 Mb to a RAM drive or two and mount them as
/tmp and /var... that all but eliminates writes to the card... now you also
lose everything in them on reboot, but /tmp should that anyway and it
shouldn't make that much difference with /var depending on your application.

As a point of endurance, I purchased 20 Raspberry Pi 1 back in 2014 and I
have had two of them fail on hardware (not SD card) and I have had 2 others
corrupt the SD card.  Not too surprising as they are in an environment
where they get shutdown regularly (nightly).  I have contemplated running
dedicated power to them rather than siphoning off the display they are
attached to but it hasn't been a big enough issue yet as I keep a master SD
card image around and just flash a new SD card and I'm up and running with
about 4 minutes of configuration on an error.

With all that, if you want to shrink the SD card image size, you can look
at this article.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19468

it talks about shrinking an SD image to fit onto a smaller SD card (both
were 4GB but one was actually slightly smaller than the other)

I want to do this as all my RPis have 4GB cards and I don't want to buy new
ones if I don't have to when I go upgrade them to Jessie from Wheezy.

Andy F

On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Curt Lundgren  wrote:

> Where SD life is concerned, we have an original Pi (700 MHz single core)
> that's been running since April of 2014.  No problems observed, and the run
> time has been limited only be UPS life (Hint:  A UPS that is issuing forth
> smoke is not a good UPS.)  I've had one at home running continuously with
> 650+ days of uptime.  I have yet to lose an SD card on a running Raspberry
> Pi.  In any application where I need to frequently write transient data I
> use a ramdisk and only the data for the long haul gets written to SD.
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>
>> If these were being used at home that is the more practical solution.
>> However the projects I am working on will deploy the RPi in places like the
>> top floor of a building I do not have unlimited access to and in a locked
>> room that I do not have the key. Or at a tower site a couple of hours drive
>> away.
>> I will have the original image files made so it will just be an issue of
>> re-imaging a new SD card. I just want to be sure it is a long time between
>> incidents of needing to do that.
>>
>> Thanks for your input.
>>
>> Bruce
>>
>> On May 4, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion 
>> wrote:
>>
>> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
>> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>>
>> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
>> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
>> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>>
>> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do
>> (just back them up and replace them when they die.)
>>
>> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should
>> last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>>
>>> I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
>>> occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.
>>>
>>> I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
>>> these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
>>> and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
>>> the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
>>> it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
>>> do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have gotten
>>> better at keeping things reasonably up to date and stable and bleeding edge
>>> is not my forte anymore.
>>>
>>> That being said I have been playing around with Raspberry Pi for the
>>> last few years. I tend to buy two or three of each version as they come
>>> out. I have two deployed for specific Ham radio stuff and am embarking on a
>>> project to help some friends out by setting up some Broadband Speed
>>> monitoring nodes. One of the shortcomings of the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is the
>>> use of SD cards. Even when you are not doing a lot of writing to the card
>>> the life of a card seems to be less than a year or so.
>>>
>>> I have read that the newer SDHC cards incorporate wear leveling much
>>> like an SSD does. With this in mind I want to set up an SD card but only
>>> partition it to use a third or a fourth of the disk space and leave the
>>> rest of the card free and unformatted for wear leveling use.
>>>
>>> My experience, thus far, is that when setting up a card for the RPi the
>>> dis

Re: [nlug] dd usage or maybe something else

[Andrew Farnsworth]

Just found a post that has the below hidden way down in it. [
http://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/169/how-can-i-extend-the-life-of-my-sd-card
]

You could try running Puppy Linux which is completely ram-resident. It's
very small and blindingly fast since it runs completely in memory by
copying the storage image (on SD card in your case) into RAM at boot and
then flushing changes periodically back to storage. The frequency of this
save is user controlled including manually.

Puppy uses the layered aufs or older unionfs filesystem underneath any of
the standard Linux filesystems like ext3 or ext4. It can also reside on
FAT, or NTFS partitions.

There are at least a couple of versions of Puppy specifically designed for
the RPi, one of them created by the "Puppy Master", Barry Kauler.

For more, go to http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Puppi

On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 9:27 PM, Andrew Farnsworth  wrote:

> I will second Curt's option on the ram drive.  Things were very tight on
> the Pi 1 and got better with the Pi 2 & 3.  Especially in headless mode, it
> is pretty easy to allocate 256 Mb to a RAM drive or two and mount them as
> /tmp and /var... that all but eliminates writes to the card... now you also
> lose everything in them on reboot, but /tmp should that anyway and it
> shouldn't make that much difference with /var depending on your application.
>
> As a point of endurance, I purchased 20 Raspberry Pi 1 back in 2014 and I
> have had two of them fail on hardware (not SD card) and I have had 2 others
> corrupt the SD card.  Not too surprising as they are in an environment
> where they get shutdown regularly (nightly).  I have contemplated running
> dedicated power to them rather than siphoning off the display they are
> attached to but it hasn't been a big enough issue yet as I keep a master SD
> card image around and just flash a new SD card and I'm up and running with
> about 4 minutes of configuration on an error.
>
> With all that, if you want to shrink the SD card image size, you can look
> at this article.
>
> https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19468
>
> it talks about shrinking an SD image to fit onto a smaller SD card (both
> were 4GB but one was actually slightly smaller than the other)
>
> I want to do this as all my RPis have 4GB cards and I don't want to buy
> new ones if I don't have to when I go upgrade them to Jessie from Wheezy.
>
> Andy F
>
> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 3:29 PM, Curt Lundgren  wrote:
>
>> Where SD life is concerned, we have an original Pi (700 MHz single core)
>> that's been running since April of 2014.  No problems observed, and the run
>> time has been limited only be UPS life (Hint:  A UPS that is issuing forth
>> smoke is not a good UPS.)  I've had one at home running continuously with
>> 650+ days of uptime.  I have yet to lose an SD card on a running Raspberry
>> Pi.  In any application where I need to frequently write transient data I
>> use a ramdisk and only the data for the long haul gets written to SD.
>>
>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:24 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>>
>>> If these were being used at home that is the more practical solution.
>>> However the projects I am working on will deploy the RPi in places like the
>>> top floor of a building I do not have unlimited access to and in a locked
>>> room that I do not have the key. Or at a tower site a couple of hours drive
>>> away.
>>> I will have the original image files made so it will just be an issue of
>>> re-imaging a new SD card. I just want to be sure it is a long time between
>>> incidents of needing to do that.
>>>
>>> Thanks for your input.
>>>
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> On May 4, 2016, at 1:35 PM, Chris McQuistion 
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> There are higher-end SD cards that supposedly include wear leveling.
>>> Those would be the cards designed for HD cameras and such.
>>>
>>> You could go that route or you could just image your system and make
>>> periodic backups.  If the card goes bad, replace it with another $10 SD
>>> card, restored from backup, and call it a day.
>>>
>>> I have two Raspberry Pi systems at home and that's what I plan to do
>>> (just back them up and replace them when they die.)
>>>
>>> On a system that isn't do a large number of writes, an SD card should
>>> last for a LONG time since reads don't wear a card out.
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 1:04 PM, Bruce Martin  wrote:
>>>
 I know that dd is one of those fundamental linux commands that are used
 occasionally but like rm need to be used carefully.

 I admit to being a rather “Appliance” operator when it come stop Linux
 these days. I use the bistro as it is and usually install only the software
 and updates that are part of the distribution. In the past I did download
 the source of the latest version of software i wanted to run and compiled
 it after tweaking the makefile and sometimes some of the code. These days I
 do not do that very much. Lazy? Maybe but the distributions have