Thread: Debian on a system with Compact Flash, without Hard Disk

Originally Posted by matsp

Flash is no more (or less) vulnerable to this [assuming the filesystem is indeed duplicating crucial data - and most Linux/Unix filesystems do in one way or another - even FAT does that]. The flash device itself is not "destroyed" during a power-down during writing - it will just contain incomplete/incorrect data in that area. Don't you think you would have heard about it if this happened easily, considering the number of iPod's that are out there - must be some people who accidentally shut down the power on their iPod [or run out of power or whatever] whilst the device is writing to the flash-device.

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Mats

I quite agree. i will try to further discuss about it with my colleague who disagrees with you.

Originally Posted by mynickmynick

I have been told that Debian on an industrial PC with a Comapct flash and without hard disk is not a great idea cause the OS writes often on the main disk and this would hit with flash limited write amount
is that correct?
I am preparing a prototype for driving cameras and analyzing images. I do not need much stuff to run. Just my threads, a few servers like ssh or ftp and very probably also Eclipse to avoid cross compiling.
Cannot I just install the minimal needed so that probably the OS will not write much on flash and corrupt it?

Thank you

moreover I guess i can disable swapping

Originally Posted by CornedBee

All filesystems really used by Linux except ext2 have journalling.

great!
and you think that it protects fine the flash from sudden power off?

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/li...ems/index.html

gg