Database Info

Boost Speed and Space Significantly in Android With SquashFS and AUFS or ubifs!

I think it would be a good idea to compress /system/bin and /system/lib at least with squashfs, I have done this on a couple ubuntu and gentoo systems and it actually increased performance and space significantly!
Reasons (short version): decompressing data is faster than reading it from the hard drive, in most current computers, especially when you have multiple programs reading from the disk, causing thrashing, and/or when the data on the disk is fragmented. You can read more details about what was done and the results on http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4732709.html#4732709
Squashfs is intended for general read-only file system use and in constrained block device/memory system, it can also be combined with a union mount system like unionfs and aufs for read/write access.
Gentoo Benchmark results:
I have compressed /bin /sbin /lib /opt /usr and then tried the following operations with and without the squashfs images mounted:
1) start the system up to the login screen
2) login and wait until desktop is usable (session is restored, hard disk stops screaming)
3) start openoffice-writer
4) start eclipse
5) generate random file access pattern and record the total time to read all files.
Code:
# find /usr -type f -printf "%s %p\n" | sort -R | awk '{ printf $2; printf "\n" }' > /sort
# time cpio -o --quiet -H newc < sort > /dev/null
Some Benchmarks on a gentoo system:
Times without squashfs+aufs:
1) 7.5 seconds to load the kernel, another 10 seconds until file systems are mounted (up to this point no speed increase is possible by this method), another 42 seconds until the login screen pops up (out of which 24 seconds are just for waiting on the network interfaces). A total of 60 seconds, out of which only 18s are relevant to our benchmark
2) 16s
3) 9s
4) 25s
5) 36m31.726s
Times with squashfs+aufs:
1) total time: 58s, out of which 16s are relevant to the benchmark -> 11% decrease in time
2) 10s -> 37.5% decrease
3) 6s -> 33% decrease
4) 22s -> 12% decrease
5) 9m48.873s -> less than 1/3 of the normal time!
We will be able to improve android boot time, app launch time, and increase space, what more could we ask for? Maybe a little bit more ram? Whats up with compcache too?
So now we just need to compile squashfs-tools for android and experiment, im pretty damn excited to try this!
[edit] Also ubifs has lzo compression, not sure how that would work either, it seems ubifs is favored over jffs2 and yaffs2
found a nice pdf:
http://free-electrons.com/doc/flash-filesystems.pdf
Benchmarks Of Yaffs2, JFFS2, SquashFS, & UBIFS:
http://free-electrons.com/pub/conferences/2008/elce/flash-filesystems.pdf
Seems like people are already using ubifs on android:
http://groups.google.com/group/andr...36603d429a/646a017892783e2b?#646a017892783e2b
Reference:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-4732709.html#4732709
http://jt0.org/news/squashing_usr_and_the_2629_kernel

you should PM Cyanogen about this, he's good at this kind of stuffs, maybe he'll incorporate this hack with his MOD.

This would be a great addition to the Cyanogen Mods. Its fast enough as it is, but I can see this helping a bit more if it gets implemented!

firestrife23 said:
you should PM Cyanogen about this, he's good at this kind of stuffs, maybe he'll incorporate this hack with his MOD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I notified him on Twitter, He said:
@ionstorm it's a good idea, maybe in a later release
I am sure if you say something in his thread and make more awareness of this im sure we can see it done quicker, I also let DudeOfLife know and he said he will look at it for a future release as well, he also thinks its a good idea.

Hey Defcon I'm actually playing around with this instead of Union/Cram for an upcoming build and its nice to hear some more good things!

justanothercrowd said:
Hey Defcon I'm actually playing around with this instead of Union/Cram for an upcoming build and its nice to hear some more good things!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey count me in on testing this for you, also looking for your twitter..

this sounds like i good idea. i hope he does implement it

Justanotherdev just compiled squashfs for kernel 2.6.29, and he is working on it as well

I just started toying with this and 2.6.29 last night. Expect a new "experimental" version soon

1st post..
Good day all...I definately agree with poster about squashfs. I dont use gentoo..but i use Sabayon which is a gentoo derivitive..just has the option for source or binary...running an os on squash will def improve performance

compression is a mistake
Im sorry to say but this is bull****.
How you dare showing proof of eclipse (300 MB !!!!) loading up an insignificant 3 seconds faster just because you compressed it and system have to load 225MB from disk instead of 300MB. Or openoffice which i dont have but im sure it is worth a good 300 MB too, and again gaining another 3 secconds load time.
How much seconds of loading time will we gain loading a compressed 0.3 MB library, 0.00001 secs? And this "improve" at the cost of giving up a good amount of the very limited RAM needed for execution, this phone have!
not to say how much incompatibilities will carry the "decompressing on the fly" with the very poor and limited RAM this phone have. and even with cpu scaling and android accessing and decompressing libraries or apps on the phone.
force closes in sight.
I also dont trust the (5) point.
HOLY GRAIL:
The real speed boost will come with the compilation of the whole android system and libraries with -O2 (speed) instead of -Os (size)
The problem is a 2.5 MB binary compiled with -Os is a 20MB binary compiled with -O2.
-O2 is between 20% - 40% faster so i am drooling for it thinking about it, but... G1 doesnt have DISK SPACE.
-O2 compilation is the holy grail. Ask gentoo users
Oh, squashfs could come handy in this case.. sad we dont have RAM or SPACE and android is the monster of slowiness. java suck!

If its a mistake then don't use it and work on the O2 yourself.

also: the phone has flash memory, which should have totally different characteristics

I wouldn't totally dismiss this idea until it's actually tested. LZO compression is really fast. A couple of us are working on it.

Squashfs was made for and used for low memory systems, I've seen amazing results on systems with 128 meg ram and a 500mhz processor, we'll try it on android and see what happens, I'm curious

*subscribed*
definately looking forward to seeing how this turns out, i just reverted back to ION today for the performance over rosie, and i cant imagine any faster, this would definately be another milestone if it worked out

Have you tried cyanogen's builds? Imo its faster than the ion roms.
wootroot said:
*subscribed*
definately looking forward to seeing how this turns out, i just reverted back to ION today for the performance over rosie, and i cant imagine any faster, this would definately be another milestone if it worked out
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

dwang said:
Have you tried cyanogen's builds? Imo its faster than the ion roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will confirm that it is at least equal. Faster is questionable, but Cyanogen does do optimization, so...

dwang said:
Have you tried cyanogen's builds? Imo its faster than the ion roms.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am not sure which builds are faster, so far its just peoples words without benchmarks, maybe we should benchmark fs read times, ram usage, free ram, cpu times.. etc..
Also some tweaks/changes may be useless or counter productive so we'll need some tests done to make sure which tweaks work and which do not.
We gotta work on is optimizing memory/cpu and startup times, with each change we should do a benchmark.

I just tested a build using the 2.6.29 build with squashFS. xbin, framework and modules can easily be compressed to squashFS images just like JF did with cramfs. Making /system/lib a squashFS image made the phone unbearable slow until it crashed
Code:
I/ActivityManager( 800): ANR (application not responding) in process: org.jsharkey.sky
I/ActivityManager( 800): Annotation: Broadcast of Intent { action=android.appwidget.action.APPWIDGET_ENABLED comp={org.jsharkey.sky/org.jsharkey.sky.TinyAppWidget} }
I/ActivityManager( 800): CPU usage:
I/ActivityManager( 800): Load: 8.63 / 7.74 / 4.33
I/ActivityManager( 800): CPU usage from 10086ms to 371ms ago:
I/ActivityManager( 800): system_server: 3% = 0% user + 3% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): org.freecoder.widgets.overclock: 3% = 0% user + 2% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): loop3: 3% = 0% user + 3% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): mediaserver: 2% = 0% user + 2% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): com.google.android.apps.scoreboard: 2% = 0% user + 1% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): android.process.acore: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): logcat: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): pdflush: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): kswapd0: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): loop2: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): vold: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): zygote: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): com.android.phone: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): +org.jsharkey.sky: 0% = 0% user + 0% kernel
I/ActivityManager( 800): TOTAL: 100% = 2% user + 19% kernel + 77% iowait
iowait of 77%?!

[REQ]Compcache stats needed. Linux swap stats helpful too.

I suspect that compcache is not interacting properly with android but I need some stats to really analyze it. This should be standardized so please answer as I request and avoid any "me too" type answers.
Here's what you need:
Compcache running or a linux swap partition or file (swapper counts).
The default browser bound to a shortcut (search-b) and set to load www.cnn.com as your homepage. Close extra windows before starting and go there at least once. Make sure you're blocking popups.
A homescreen where you have icons and widgets that you have noticed in the past have taken time to load.
Music player to run in the background if you need to increase the system load.
Optionally: Gmail bound to a keyboard shortcut. (search-g for me)
Adb shell and knowledge to run these tests.
Here's what you're doing:
adb shell into your phone
Grab following stats (you can copy and paste in on one line):
Code:
uname -r;uptime;cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness;cat /proc/swaps;cat /proc/ramzswap;free
Hit home button and go to homescreen. Take note of whether the homescreen needed to reload everything or if it was snappy. After completely done loading, run 'free' and record.
Keyboard shortcut to browser. Take note of whether the browser had to download and reload everything. After completely done loading, run 'free' and record.
Repeat 3-4 until either:
switching is always snappy,
the value of 'free' for swap ceases to change significantly while apps are reloading (like +-100 over 2-3 slow reloads),
or the value of 'free' for swap maxes out (note if you start getting lots of force closes).
Code:
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95492 2384 0 644
Swap: 43880 [B] 404[/B] 43476
Total: 141756 95896 45860
If its always snappy, put more load on the system by setting the music player in the background. If that still doesn't stress the system, throw in Gmail in the mix randomly. Note if snappy, and record 'free' stats.
If you're using both compcache and a linux swap, try to get information at the point where you've crossed over from compcache to linux swap. So if you're compcache is only 8 megs, seeing the difference as your swap fills over the 8 meg boundary is useful.
Finally, here's what you should report, either by putting it into a text file and attaching, or by placing it into a
Code:
block.
[list=1][*]Mod used. e.g. Cyanogen 3.9
[*]Info from step 2) above. [code]2.6.29-cm
12:47:45 up 3:43, load average: 2.13, 2.05, 2.09
15
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/ramzswap0 partition 12284 408 -1
/system/sd/swapfile.swp file 31596 0 -2
DiskSize: 12288 kB
NumReads: 33
NumWrites: 102
FailedReads: 0
FailedWrites: 0
InvalidIO: 0
PagesDiscard: 0
ZeroPages: 3
GoodCompress: 77 %
NoCompress: 9 %
PagesStored: 99
PagesUsed: 31
OrigDataSize: 396 kB
ComprDataSize: 118 kB
MemUsedTotal: 124 kB
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95720 2156 0 632
Swap: 43880 408 43472
Total: 141756 96128 45628
[*]Results from repeating 3-4. If it ended up being too responsive and you couldn't stress it just include one cycle. Mark what you swapped to and whether it reloaded (Y for yes). e.g.
Code:
home
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95824 2052 0 292
Swap: 24464 2268 22196
Total: 122340 98092 24248
browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96032 1844 0 252
Swap: 24464 2540 21924
Total: 122340 98572 23768
home
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 94436 3440 0 264
Swap: 24464 2940 21524
Total: 122340 97376 24964
browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95960 1916 0 280
Swap: 24464 5292 19172
Total: 122340 101252 21088
home Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 92868 5008 0 272
Swap: 24464 6484 17980
Total: 122340 99352 22988
[/list]
Thanks!

Reserved for my test results.

Another good test is iMeem. This app is a memory whore and really puts pressure on the system.

Code:
Cyanogen 3.6.8.1
2.6.29-cm
15:19:09 up 5:28, load average: 7.58, 5.31, 4.33
20
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/ramzswap0 partition 24464 15968 -1
DiskSize: 24468 kB
NumReads: 7817
NumWrites: 8908
FailedReads: 0
FailedWrites: 0
InvalidIO: 0
PagesDiscard: 0
ZeroPages: 241
GoodCompress: 65 %
NoCompress: 12 %
PagesStored: 5871
PagesUsed: 2370
OrigDataSize: 23484 kB
ComprDataSize: 9323 kB
MemUsedTotal: 9480 kB
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95852 2024 0 560
Swap: 24464 15968 8496
Total: 122340 111820 10520
home Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96348 1528 0 776
Swap: 24464 14600 9864
Total: 122340 110948 11392
browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96528 1348 0 420
Swap: 24464 14844 9620
Total: 122340 111372 10968
home Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96432 1444 0 752
Swap: 24464 14792 9672
Total: 122340 111224 11116
browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96484 1392 0 404
Swap: 24464 14844 9620
Total: 122340 111328 11012
home Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96464 1412 0 668
Swap: 24464 15048 9416
Total: 122340 111512 10828

No other posts? C'mon everyone, these statistics will help YOU get a faster, better configured phone.

**********

sha.goyjo said:
I'm going to be the first to say it. Doing tests on compcache .5 is somewhat pointless atm. If you follow Cyanogens, you'll see that he's currently working with the compcache people on an arm revision of .6, which uses a VERY different code base. I'd contribute to your thread if it wasn't trying to fiddle with a version that was just an arm patch on the existing compcache branch. You'd be better off waiting till the .6 goes stable on the trunk. All that being said, if you want to try and rewrite kernel modules that are in the process of being re-re-written, be my guest.
Not trying to be an ass, just trying to save us all some time by working towards things efficiently.
That being said, .6 could REALLY use some people working on it. Once it gets working we'll be able to use backing swap files instead of a partition, which would be great. No more Linux-swap on an sdcard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm. So what you are saying is that we should find no significance in the fact the cyanogen already posted in this thread with supportive info for the tests.
Also, in regards to your work on .6, what benchmarking plan did you have to prove:
1) that .6 performs better than .5 on our phones
2) that .6 performs better than a linux swap on our phones
3) that .6 performs better than .5 with a backing swap on our phones
Please note that any answers to this thread could help build these benchmarks for you.

Running CM 3.8
Browser only reloaded once...even with music playing, and running wisepilot! Even the one reload was a quick one.
Code:
2.6.29-cm
18:05:17 up 1:13, load average: 2.75, 3.69, 4.14
60
Filename Type Size Used Priorit
/dev/ramzswap0 partition 31996 21264 -1
DiskSize: 32000 kB
NumReads: 15024
NumWrites: 16558
FailedReads: 0
FailedWrites: 0
InvalidIO: 0
PagesDiscard: 246
ZeroPages: 196
GoodCompress: 75 %
NoCompress: 4 %
PagesStored: 7804
PagesUsed: 2977
OrigDataSize: 31216 kB
ComprDataSize: 11516 kB
MemUsedTotal: 11908 kB
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96376 1500 0 576
Swap: 31996 21264 10732
Total: 129872 117640 12232
#
From CNN to Home
**snappy
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95752 2124 0 588
Swap: 31996 22040 9956
Total: 129872 117792 12080
From Home to CNN
**snappy no reload
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96032 1844 0 520
Swap: 31996 22020 9976
Total: 129872 118052 11820
#
ADDED MUSIC PLAYER BACKGROUND And checked mem
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95964 1912 0 624
Swap: 31996 17516 14480
Total: 129872 113480 16392
FROM HOME TO CNN
**Reload
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96120 1756 0 448
Swap: 31996 24780 7216
Total: 129872 120900 8972
CNN to Home
**Snappy...no redraw
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96400 1476 0 492
Swap: 31996 29248 2748
Total: 129872 125648 4224
Home to Browser
***Snappy NO RELOAD WITH MUSIC RUNNING!!!
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96288 1588 0 464
Swap: 31996 26660 5336
Total: 129872 122948 6924
ADDED WISEPILOT NAVIGATION mUSIC STILL RUNNING
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96532 1344 0 396
Swap: 31996 27592 4404
Total: 129872 124124 5748
WISEPILOT RUNNING, MUSIC RUNNING, SWITCHED TO CNN from within wisepilot (search b)
***NO RELOAD, NO LAG....
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95988 1888 0 492
Swap: 31996 27208 4788
Total: 129872 123196 6676
#

double posted

by the way, in case everyone missed it:
I have two G1's. Both have brand new installs of CM 3.9. One has compcache (with swapiness set to 20 and 24mb of space allocated) and one does not. After a reboot on both devices and waiting a five minutes for everything to settle, I filmed the opening of the camera app. The one without compcache is noticeably quicker. Is compcache slowing our machines down, at least in certain instances?
By the way, cat /proc/ramzswap confirms compcache is enabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNYv-5WLDVA
edit:swappiness for the above tests was at 60....

Running Cyanogen 3.8.1 with the Palm Pre theme ( dunno if it made a diff.) and HTC Music app running.
Code:
2.6.29-cm
03:53:53 up 3 min, load average: 2.22, 1.47, 0.60
60
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/ramzswap0 partition 31996 11612 -1
DiskSize: 32000 kB
NumReads: 1902
NumWrites: 3415
FailedReads: 0
FailedWrites: 0
InvalidIO: 0
PagesDiscard: 0
ZeroPages: 137
GoodCompress: 72 %
NoCompress: 4 %
PagesStored: 3278
PagesUsed: 1128
OrigDataSize: 13112 kB
ComprDataSize: 4461 kB
MemUsedTotal: 4512 kB
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96488 1388 0 652
Swap: 31996 11612 20384
Total: 129872 108100 21772
Home Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95704 2172 0 668
Swap: 31996 11612 20384
Total: 129872 107316 22556
Browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96308 1568 0 432
Swap: 31996 15528 16468
Total: 129872 111836 18036
Home N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 86336 11540 0 468
Swap: 31996 14936 17060
Total: 129872 101272 28600
Browser Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95196 2680 0 520
Swap: 31996 14932 17064
Total: 129872 110128 19744
Home N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96176 1700 0 460
Swap: 31996 15056 16940
Total: 129872 111232 18640
Browser (Opened up really quick) N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96432 1444 0 540
Swap: 31996 15200 16796
Total: 129872 111632 18240
Home N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96096 1780 0 540
Swap: 31996 15208 16788
Total: 129872 111304 18568

pinetreehater said:
by the way, in case everyone missed it:
I have two G1's. Both have brand new installs of CM 3.9. One has compcache (with swapiness set to 20 and 24mb of space allocated) and one does not. After a reboot on both devices and waiting a five minutes for everything to settle, I filmed the opening of the camera app. The one without compcache is noticeably quicker. Is compcache slowing our machines down, at least in certain instances?
By the way, cat /proc/ramzswap confirms compcache is enabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNYv-5WLDVA
edit:swappiness for the above tests was at 60....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not surprised it was.
Without compcache : Start camera app, realize your out of memory, kill another application (meaning it will start slower the next time, going through full initialization).
With compcache : Start camera, push inactive application into compcache.
I'd like to see some similar tests with more tests run. I think I might actually write a little app for this.

derfolo said:
Hmm. So what you are saying is that we should find no significance in the fact the cyanogen already posted in this thread with supportive info for the tests.
Also, in regards to your work on .6, what benchmarking plan did you have to prove:
1) that .6 performs better than .5 on our phones
2) that .6 performs better than a linux swap on our phones
3) that .6 performs better than .5 with a backing swap on our phones
Please note that any answers to this thread could help build these benchmarks for you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, I apologize for being offensive. Part of my reasoning has more to do with the fact that, as far as I have seen, regardless of what works best people tend to move to the latest version. It wasn't a utility prediction. In that respect, you are going in the right direction. I do think that the plans to implement dynamic swapping between backing and ramz in the future really make a big difference, however, in any kind of work we are trying to do here. Also, from what I've looked at the difference in the modules, they look significantly different now.
I didn't mean to press your buttons, but what I'm saying does have merit.
I say this because it's not about benchmarking the current version vs. the new version. That kind of a benchmark doesn't work, because the new version has an improved feature set. Software with a larger feature set rarely performs better than software with a smaller feature set. However, the features inherent in compcache .6 are VERY compelling for android phones, specifically the ability to use backing_swap from a FILE instead of a partition. The fewer partitions on your sdcard, the better. Less wasted space, and less time spend confusing the kernel as to which /dev/ it should be writing to at the time.
As to cyanogen having "supported" your tests, there are a lot of good reasons for it. You could discover a kernel interfacing problem. You could discover a problem in the arm patch that would be relevant to the new version or upgraded versions of CM.
All I think is that the compcache project could use all the help it can get rolling out .6 for android, and that if more people helped them with that, maybe we could try and find ways to fix the version of compcache we'll be using, instead of the one we'll be moving away from.

One thing people need to realize is that there is no free lunch. Swap (whether the partition or compcache) is not for speeding up the system but for allowing you to run many big apps together at the same time.
swap will slow you down a bit, whether its compcache (cpu overhead for compression) or partition (I/O overhead). So, stop fooling yourself. If you want a fast phone, just use basic things and leave swap out of picture. if you want a fast phone AND want to run tonnes of stuff like touchflo, get a phone with more RAM.

test results
devsk said:
One thing people need to realize is that there is no free lunch. Swap (whether the partition or compcache) is not for speeding up the system but for allowing you to run many big apps together at the same time.
swap will slow you down a bit, whether its compcache (cpu overhead for compression) or partition (I/O overhead). So, stop fooling yourself. If you want a fast phone, just use basic things and leave swap out of picture. if you want a fast phone AND want to run tonnes of stuff like touchflo, get a phone with more RAM.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds rather like you're saying, "Stop trying to make things better." Rather an odd sentiment for a Development forum, no?
I ran this test with just Calendar and Weather widgets running on the home screen and, although I have occasionally found the entire home screen slow to reload during regular use, during this test the home screen never seemed to reload at all, even with Music playing and an occasional jump to Gmail.
I'm running CM 3.9 with a simple Compcache script (no backing swap) initiated from Gscript for default disk size and 20 swappiness:
Code:
2.6.29-cm
12:23:08 up 36 min, load average: 3.37, 3.65, 2.79
20
Filename Type Size Used Priority
/dev/ramzswap0 partition 24464 6992 -1
DiskSize: 24468 kB
NumReads: 587
NumWrites: 1761
FailedReads: 0
FailedWrites: 0
InvalidIO: 0
PagesDiscard: 0
ZeroPages: 126
GoodCompress: 66 %
NoCompress: 5 %
PagesStored: 1635
PagesUsed: 602
OrigDataSize: 6540 kB
ComprDataSize: 2338 kB
MemUsedTotal: 2408 kB
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 92880 4996 0 552
Swap: 24464 6992 17472
Total: 122340 99872 22468
Browser: N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 92856 5020 0 552
Swap: 24464 6992 17472
Total: 122340 99848 22492
Home: N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 92856 5020 0 552
Swap: 24464 6992 17472
Total: 122340 99848 22492
(after stressing with Music playing AND switching to Gmail)
Browser: Y
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 95752 2124 0 452
Swap: 24464 7892 16572
Total: 122340 103644 18696
Home: N
total used free shared buffers
Mem: 97876 96496 1380 0 444
Swap: 24464 8276 16188
Total: 122340 104772 17568

ei8htohms said:
I ran this test with just Calendar and Weather widgets running on the home screen and, although I have occasionally found the entire home screen slow to reload during regular use, during this test the home screen never seemed to reload at all, even with Music playing and an occasional jump to Gmail.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And it probably doesn't, with compcache you have enough memory to keep it in, while without it needs to go through the whole onCreate and xml inflation.

I am not saying don't make it better. What I am saying is your expectations should be correct.
I use compcache myself. I use it with memlimit_kb=32000 disksize_kb=48000 backing_swap=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 and a swappiness of 20. But I don't expect it to make my system fly. I just expect that more of my apps will stick around rather than killed and reloaded later. So, I am paying a little swapping cost upfront for payback later.

any lag once compcache fills up?
devsk said:
I am not saying don't make it better. What I am saying is your expectations should be correct.
I use compcache myself. I use it with memlimit_kb=32000 disksize_kb=48000 backing_swap=/dev/block/mmcblk0p3 and a swappiness of 20. But I don't expect it to make my system fly. I just expect that more of my apps will stick around rather than killed and reloaded later. So, I am paying a little swapping cost upfront for payback later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Understood about managing expectations. I'm still considering the potential negative impact on battery life as well, since this is one notorious weak spot on the G1 (when it came out you didn't hear huge numbers of people complaining about how SLOW it was, but everyone complained about battery life...).
Do you mind explaining a little about your memlimit and disksize settings? I read a little about those options in the Google Code page, but I can't say I fully grokked the significance or difference.
I also can't seem to find a good explanation of how compcache and backing-swap work together. Most reports on XDA point to massive lag after compcache maxes out, but is it only then that backing-swap kicks in (and maybe a lot of those folks were using the 60 or 100 swappiness settings)? Can Linux-swap and compcache be run in parallel or separately from each other in some way (I'm guessing no)?

ei8htohms said:
Understood about managing expectations. I'm still considering the potential negative impact on battery life as well, since this is one notorious weak spot on the G1 (when it came out you didn't hear huge numbers of people complaining about how SLOW it was, but everyone complained about battery life...).
Do you mind explaining a little about your memlimit and disksize settings? I read a little about those options in the Google Code page, but I can't say I fully grokked the significance or difference.
I also can't seem to find a good explanation of how compcache and backing-swap work together. Most reports on XDA point to massive lag after compcache maxes out, but is it only then that backing-swap kicks in (and maybe a lot of those folks were using the 60 or 100 swappiness settings)? Can Linux-swap and compcache be run in parallel or separately from each other in some way (I'm guessing no)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
According to the Dev:
**********************************************************
Usage:
- modprobe ramzswap [memlimit_kb=<val>|disksize_kb=<val>] [backing_swap=<dev>]
memlimit_kb: This param is applicable only when backing_swap is given.
It is limit on amount compressed data stored in memory. Any
additional data is forwarded to backing_swap. It cannot be greater
than backing device size. If missing or 0, default value is used:
15% of RAM or backing device size, whichever is smaller.
disksize_kb: This param is applicable only when backing_swap is not given.
It is limit on amount of *uncompressed* worth of data stored in
memory. For e.g. disksize_kb=1024 means it can hold 1024kb worth of
uncompressed data even if this data compresses to just, say, 100kb.
If missing or 0, default value is used: 25% of RAM.
backing_swap: This is block device to be used as backing store for ramzswap.
It must be a valid swap partition. We move data to this device when we
encounter incompressible page or memlimit is reached. TODO: we may also
move some pages from ramzswap to this device in case system is really
low on memory.
This device is not directly visible to kernel as a swap device
(/proc/swaps will only show /dev/ramzswap0 and not this device).
Managing this backing device is the job of ramzswap module.
Examples:
1) modprobe ramzswap memlimit_kb=10240 backing_swap=/dev/sda2
sets ramzswap limit as 10MB and /dev/sda2 as backing swap device.
NOTE: here /dev/sda2 is a valid swap partition.
2) modprobe ramzswap backing_swap=/dev/sda2
same as (1) but memlimit is set to default: 15% of RAM or size of
backing swap device, whichever is smaller.
3) modprobe ramzswap disksize_kb=10240
sets ramzswap disk size as 10MB.
4) modprobe ramzswap.ko
same as (3) but ramzswap disk size will be set to default:
25% of RAM size.
Once module is loaded, activate this swap with highest priority:
swapon /dev/ramzswap0 -p 100
(-p param set swap priority)
Notes:
- ramzswap stats are exported via /proc/ramzswap
- If you give non-swap partition as backing_swap, nothing bad will happen -
swapon will simply fail to recognize /dev/ramzswap0 as swap partition.
So, in this case, unload the module and reload with correct backing_swap.
**********************************************************

thanks! very interesting
uwonsum said:
According to the Dev:
memlimit_kb: applicable only when backing_swap is given...limit on amount compressed data stored...additional data is forwarded to backing_swap.
disksize_kb: applicable only when backing_swap is not given...limit on amount of *uncompressed* worth of data stored.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So if I'm reading this right, memlimit and disksize would never be used together, right? And when backing_swap is NOT used, compcache is using the disksize allocation for uncompressed data, like virtual swap within RAM? Huh?
Once module is loaded, activate this swap with highest priority:
swapon /dev/ramzswap0 -p 100
(-p param set swap priority)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This swap priority info seems to directly conflict the info on the CompilingAndUsing page of the Google code project page:
Add ramzswap as swap device
swapon /dev/ramzswap0 -p 1 (give this swap device the highest priority).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is 1 the highest priority or is 100 the highest priority? Is this the same as setting the swappiness? There must be a typo somewhere. Any help?
[EDIT]NVM, "-p 1" seems to be an invalid parameter.[/EDIT]
BTW, I started playing with your (rather more exotic) script from the CM Wheel of Death thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4205132&postcount=518
Have you had any further findings about the various settings employed?
Thanks again!

Benchmark Results

If you've been following the different hacks/fixes over in the Dev section you'll know there's quite a bit of debate as to the validity of the benchmark results obtained, specifically in Quadrant.
To lay it out a little I've posted results for 3 different benchmark programs in 3 different situations.
Below are my results for the stock kernel + app lag fix, AJerman's Overclock Kernel, and Nukacola's Ext3/sdcard fix.
Stock + App lag fix
Quadrant 919
Linpack 8.092 MFLOPS
Benchmark
Graphic
Total 31.94
Draw Opacity 9.62
Draw Transparent 9.91
CPU
Total 767.66
MWIPS DP 56.27
MWIPS SP 61.01
MFLOPS DP 4.94
MFLOPS SP 9.27
VAX MIPS DP 41.35
VAX MIPS SP 40.45
Memory
Total 644.70
Copy Memory 585.82
Filesystem
total 182.13
Creating Files 3.64
Deleting Files 2.70
Write 1M 9.27
Read 1M 357.14
W/ AJerman's kernel, OC'd to 1200.
Quadrant 1112
Linpack 10.62
Benchmark
Graphic
Total 38.25
Draw Opacity 11.43
Draw Transparent 11.96
CPU
Total 926.57
MWIPS DP 67.39
MWIPS SP 73.75
MFLOPS DP 5.80
MFLOPS SP 11.01
VAX MIPS DP 50.04
VAX MIPS SP 49.47
Memory
Total 846.54
Copy Memory 769.23
Filesystem
total 280.99
Creating Files 3.29
Deleting Files 2.58
Write 1M 9.76
Read 1M 555.56
And finally, OC'd with Nuka's fix.
Quadrant 1112
Linpack 10.10
Benchmark
Graphic
Total 38.39
Draw Opacity 11.58
Draw Transparent 11.91
CPU
Total 912.19
MWIPS DP 68.03
MWIPS SP 71.07
MFLOPS DP 9.10
MFLOPS SP 11.29
VAX MIPS DP 47.68
VAX MIPS SP 46.28
Memory
Total 807.41
Copy Memory 733.68
Filesystem
total 280.93
Creating Files 3.41
Deleting Files 2.61
Write 1M 9.59
Read 1M 555.56
Please understand that these are my results, and they're for information only. My intent is to show those thinking of doing any of these the benefits of each

[Q] Fastest ROM

Just looking for input on the fastest ROM out there. I've only tried one myself - MightyROM - and I love it, but I do get a frustrating amount of lag on the phone and tends to use alot of RAM.
What are your lightning fast fav's?

I really liked the bare naked ROM series but that was discontinued, hands down it was the fastest ROM i've ever tried. Right now i honestly cant find any noticable difference between most ROMS anymore in terms of speed. Although I havnt tried grooveROM, I just overclock all my ROMS now and any manila 2.5 ROM is almost always the same speed.

I have used alot of roms but so far the one I have kept the longest is the neodium rom. Get the one that says "Sept 15 Neo-CHT-2018 (SYS 21916)". Manila runs so smooth, it has CHT, & I have never had any lock ups. I haven't soft reset my phone in about 1 month (which is when I got the rom). That says it all to me.
Here is the link at PPCGeeks.

Thanks for the info. I think I'll give that other rom a try. I hadn't considered overclocking but I'll start a seach for that and see how thats done too. Thanks!

Loaded neodium rom last night and so far really like it. It really does seem faster! Have you tried the other versions of it that are available - Plutonium?

Mine is 21057 core WM 6.1 with Sense 2.1919,that is freaking fast enough,and always stay on around 50% RAM,that's why I don't like any WM 6.5 with Sense 2.5 till now

Please people. If you are gonna say that any rom is the "fastest", please post benchmarks to prove it.

Benchmarks from my latest rom:
Code:
Report
Spb Benchmark Indices
Spb Benchmark index 541.81 (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
CPU index 2397.32 (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
File system index 227.01 (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
Graphics index 1709.62 (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
ActiveSync index insufficient number of tests were done. (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
Platform index insufficient number of tests were done. (iPAQ 3650 scored 1000)
Main test was not done
Main test results
Test Time Speed % of iPAQ 3650* speed
Write 1 MB file 458 ms 2238 KB/sec 282%
Read 1 MB file 56.4 ms 17.7 MB/sec 97%
Copy 1 MB file 507 ms 2020 KB/sec 256%
Write 10 KB x 100 files 4197 ms 244 KB/sec 44%
Read 10 KB x 100 files 338 ms 2.96 MB/sec 47%
Copy 10 KB x 100 files 3998 ms 256 KB/sec 54%
Directory list of 2000 files 1024 ms 1.95 thousands of files/sec 2%
Internal database read 621 ms 1610 records/sec 382%
Graphics test: DDB BitBlt 11.4 ms 88 frames/sec 327%
Graphics test: DIB BitBlt 28.5 ms 35.1 frames/sec 260%
Graphics test: GAPI BitBlt 4.47 ms 223 frames/sec 104%
Compress 1 MB file using ZIP 2396 ms 423 KB/sec 399%
Decompress 1024x768 JPEG file 499 ms 564 KB/sec 177%
Arkaball frames per second 6.81 ms 147 frames/sec 136%
CPU test: Whetstones MFLOPS 2771 ms 0.134 Mop/sec 291%
CPU test: Whetstones MOPS 814 ms 77.4 Mop/sec 227%
CPU test: Whetstones MWIPS 5820 ms 8.59 Mop/sec 289%
Memory test: copy 1 MB using memcpy 6.82 ms 147 MB/sec 208%

MR.X ROM its super fast but you cant send picture mail

The Energy Titanium ROM is the fastest so far and the least number of problems! Very silky smooth.

[DEAD] Crius Mea Q7A+ - Qualcomm MSM8625 SoC ARMv7-A arch DEAD

ⴰⵣⵓⵍ,
When i say dead, it's typically dead.
The tablet is a Crius Mea Q7A+, uses the Qualcomm MSM8625 SoC based on the ARMv7-A arch that combines 2 ARM Cortex-A5.
While this tablet was just bricked for a long while, and i couldn't and didn't have time and firmware to reflash it, since it's one of those useless chinese low end tablets.
Having such a desirable SoC for a programmer i thought i can test on it my first steps bootloaders and Embedded OS while developing them for this sole purpose.
ⵣ Space to avoid readers jumping lines ⵣ
The tablet after i flashed it with a lower firmware of an equivalent or almost another SoC, was booting in fastboot mode only thinking that i could get more info's with that about partitions.
I didn't, so what i did was erasing the modem partition, and that left the tablet open as a generic storage drive, i saved almost every information i could have about this SoC, the partition that were available, Qualcomm's boot sequence, UART serial connection of the SoC, and read for week several pages to gather information useful to make a bootloader.
ⵣ Space to avoid readers jumping lines ⵣ
At the end i failed, i thought i could repartition the Flash memory of the SoC to prepare it for future uploading of my bootloader, there was a partition that is miss aligned, which was maybe the 3gb internal storage, so what i did is delete the partition and recreate it erasing the secondary ones, it was working normally as expected.
But then tomorrow i decided to plug the tablet again, but it doesn't get detected, this happened before, i cant really explain how the Primary core is trying to establish connection with the PC, but it's a bad mofo. Still it was detected all the time if i remember well.
But today the tablet was dead, i can even feel the SoC is not responding at all.
Not even detected when plugged to PC.
The battery does charges, cause i tested with a diode since i dont have a multimeter, which burned even with a resistor after the current was too high, but then with a DC brushless motor.
Mainly the charging circuit is separated from other components and connected directly to DC, that's why it's charging.
I opened the tablet, and took off the battery cables thinking i might be able to get the core to QDload mode which pressing some combinations...
And yeah i tried every combination i can think off, i even tried pressing my mouse in the PC and pressing the Vol UP in the tablet... am so funny.
I hope anyone can tell me a way to communicate with the SoC in this state, or any other solution thanks peace.
Finally i forgot the partition i saved as a text before i repartitioned the last ones only :
Code:
Disk /dev/sdd: 3.7 GiB, 3909091328 bytes, 7634944 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdd1 * 1 40 40 20K 4d QNX4.x
/dev/sdd2 41 540 500 250K 45 unknown
/dev/sdd3 541 102940 102400 50M c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdd4 102941 7634943 7532003 3.6G 5 Extended
/dev/sdd5 131072 135167 4096 2M 46 unknown
/dev/sdd6 135168 141311 6144 3M 58 unknown
/dev/sdd7 141312 147455 6144 3M 4a unknown
/dev/sdd8 147456 153599 6144 3M 4b unknown
/dev/sdd9 153600 157695 4096 2M 5d unknown
/dev/sdd10 157696 165887 8192 4M 90 unknown
/dev/sdd11 165888 167935 2048 1M 63 GNU HURD or SysV
/dev/sdd12 167936 169471 1536 768K 47 unknown
/dev/sdd13 169472 196623 27152 13.3M 60 unknown
/dev/sdd14 196624 217103 20480 10M 91 unknown
/dev/sdd15 217104 413711 196608 96M 83 Linux
/dev/sdd16 413712 440863 27152 13.3M 48 unknown
/dev/sdd17 440864 1362463 921600 450M 83 Linux
/dev/sdd18 1362464 1567263 204800 100M 83 Linux
/dev/sdd19 1567264 1567303 40 20K 4c unknown
/dev/sdd20 1567304 4536903 2969600 1.4G c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdd21 4536904 7510599 2973696 1.4G 83 Linux
/dev/sdd22 7510600 7634942 124343 60.7M 83 Linux
As you can the sdd4 partition was overlapping other partitions sectors so i had to erase it, the rest got erased in the way, but the main boot and from 1 to 3 are intact.
Something else, the MSM7627a is a close SoC to this one, except for the one i have got 2 Cores instead of one, and supports LPDDR and have a more developed GPU, here's a note i wrote :
Code:
MSM7627 seems close enough to the MSM8625, except that it uses a single core ARMv7-A CORTEX A5.
Which is the primary core that we need to boot up, then add the next core to the equation for the kernel.
Some differences about the MSM7627a and the MSM8625 :
MSM7627a | MSM8625
CPU Clock Speed 1,000MHz 1,200MHz
CPU Cores 1 2
GPU Qualcomm Adreno 200 Qualcomm Adreno 203
RAM Interface LPDDR2 SDRAM LPDDR, LPDDR2 SDRAM
As we can see here, they are almost identical, except for the cores which wont make a wall since we're making a bootloader, the GPU... and the RAM interface
Am on Debian Stretch and i dont have any ways of visualization but i accept any link on any platform. Thanks everyone peace again
I also want to add, that i can feel a bit of heat over the tablet it's certainly not from the battery, i dont really know if its coming from the SoC, but if it is am really glad he's doing some cycles.

And i thought i had a chance in this forum lol. looks like am on ma own.