Anybody slim down Sage yet?

[dvd_maniac]

I know when I install an OS, the first thing I do is shutdown every non-essential service, background process, eye candy and uninstall extra uneeded software.
It is easy to do with all the websites devoted to explaining what everything in Windows does and whether they are needed.

I was just wondering if anybody here has done this to improve performance of Sage? There are a bunch of lines in the properties files and disabling some of the features there might do this but I also do not want to "break" anything.
I am one of the few people who really do not care what the UI looks like I just want it to respond FAST!!!

[sakker]

That would be great. The problem with it is, the type of people who use sage are typically the type of people that like to tweak things, and among us, I can almost guarantee that no two of us would be happy with the same setup. That's the beauty of Sage.

I do the exact same thing with os's, once it's setup I tend to make fairly minimal changes to the os for fear of screwing something up. A reinstall of sage or a properties file is a few minutes worst case. Screw up the os and by the time you mess around and finally decide to reinstall and the reinstall time, sometimes it's many many hours later, or days.

[dvd_maniac]

I can almost guarantee that no two of us would be happy with the same setup

I am not suggesting that one person setup their properties file and that others use it. What I am suggesting is that one, some or many of us create a place where each editable line of the properties file is described, whether there are any dependencies to it, what benefits and what if any consequence there is to disable/enabling it.

[debennett2]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

I am not suggesting that one person setup their properties file and that others use it. What I am suggesting is that one, some or many of us create a place where each editable line of the properties file is described, whether there are any dependencies to it, what benefits and what if any consequence there is to disable/enabling it.

Seems like a logical request to me....

[Lucas]

I also want to be able to do this but the lack of detailed descriptions for all sage.properties entries is prohibitive.

[dvd_maniac]

Well hopefully someone with some Xperience can get us started???

[MeInMaui]

This is also something I would like to see. I tried starting a thread on this about a month ago, but it never went anywhere. However, I did put a link in my first post to a properties listing dating back to v2.0. Maybe that could help get things started?

Aloha,
Mike

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by MeInMaui

This is also something I would like to see. I tried starting a thread on this about a month ago, but it never went anywhere. However, I did put a link in my first post to a properties listing dating back to v2.0. Maybe that could help get things started?

Aloha,
Mike

It would be great to see it slimmed down to the point where it could boot and run from flash as a client. No hard disk, no swapping, super fast boot, etc... Ideal for SFF systems like the MP965-DR, etc...

Thanks,
Mike

[dvd_maniac]

Originally Posted by mikesm

It would be great to see it slimmed down to the point where it could boot and run from flash as a client. No hard disk, no swapping, super fast boot, etc... Ideal for SFF systems like the MP965-DR, etc...

Thanks,
Mike

awesome idea...

[FidgetyRat]

Originally Posted by mikesm

It would be great to see it slimmed down to the point where it could boot and run from flash as a client. No hard disk, no swapping, super fast boot, etc... Ideal for SFF systems like the MP965-DR, etc...

Thanks,
Mike

I dabbled in windows on Compact Flash. Although possible, it takes alot of work. Windows relies heavily on disk access and as we know flash has limited write life. In order to circumvent this, you need to cache alot of this into RAM and disable disk access. This can be done via code included in windows embedded edition, but using this code is illegal.

There are ways to beat an XP installation down to <400MB, but that also takes alot of work.

Better off just sticking with a quiet HDD for the main system drive.


The best part about it was locking the flash card in a state where windows was hibernated. This way, whenever the power is cut, it would load back to the hibernated state automatically. You never have to safely shut down again. Trouble is storing the extra 500-1gig of hibernation data


Basically, the whole process took WAY too much effort. In the end, I took my 2Gig CF Card and the CF->IDE adapter and use it to house my file backups. At least this way if I ever have disk failure, i have a solid state backup.

[bcjenkins]

Sounds like something to be put on the WIKI.

[mattdcknsn]

One other option which would take A TON of work is to use a bartPE installation of windows with only the necessary programs to get it to work. This is a windows OS bootable from a CD or DVD rom. It then loads the entire OS and programs into a RAMdisk. The only problem with this is getting everything working in the environment from the get go. Any changes you make will be lost after next reboot. Also, the boot time is extended alot. In the end its just not really worth it. I use it for troubleshooting OS problems and to recover data, other than that it is too much for too little. Especially with the tweaking necessary for PVRs.

Originally Posted by FidgetyRat

I dabbled in windows on Compact Flash. Although possible, it takes alot of work. Windows relies heavily on disk access and as we know flash has limited write life. In order to circumvent this, you need to cache alot of this into RAM and disable disk access. This can be done via code included in windows embedded edition, but using this code is illegal.

There are ways to beat an XP installation down to <400MB, but that also takes alot of work.

Better off just sticking with a quiet HDD for the main system drive.


The best part about it was locking the flash card in a state where windows was hibernated. This way, whenever the power is cut, it would load back to the hibernated state automatically. You never have to safely shut down again. Trouble is storing the extra 500-1gig of hibernation data


Basically, the whole process took WAY too much effort. In the end, I took my 2Gig CF Card and the CF->IDE adapter and use it to house my file backups. At least this way if I ever have disk failure, i have a solid state backup.

[toricred]

There's also the problem that with BartPE you must reboot every 24 hours and there is still some question on whether it is even legal.

Originally Posted by mattdcknsn

One other option which would take A TON of work is to use a bartPE installation of windows with only the necessary programs to get it to work. This is a windows OS bootable from a CD or DVD rom. It then loads the entire OS and programs into a RAMdisk. The only problem with this is getting everything working in the environment from the get go. Any changes you make will be lost after next reboot. Also, the boot time is extended alot. In the end its just not really worth it. I use it for troubleshooting OS problems and to recover data, other than that it is too much for too little. Especially with the tweaking necessary for PVRs.

[stanger89]

What exactly are you guys expecting to get out of this? There's not really anything to turn off. Sage doesn't really do anything non-essential. Only thing I can think of is to disable periodically rescanning import dirs, and that's an option in the GUI.

[dvd_maniac]

I was looking to shutoff any bells and whistles that might be enabled for faster menu response.

[GKusnick]

If that's the goal, your efforts would probably be better spent developing a stripped-down custom STV with minimal graphics, few configurable options, hard-coded fonts, no alpha blending, and so on. The complexity of the STV code is likely to have a much greater impact on menu performance than tweaking random properties in hopes of discovering something useful.

The other thing to keep in mind is that all code has bugs. The bugs that get found and fixed are the ones that lie on the well-traveled code paths near the stock config. The farther you stray from stock into unknown and untested territory, the more likely you are to trip over bugs that nobody has ever seen before and that may be difficult for the devs to reproduce. If that's the kind of adventure you're looking for, don't let me stop you, but for for the sake of stability it might be smarter to stick fairly close to what the devs themselves use.

[stanger89]

Java 1.6 is the best way to improve responsiveness.

[dvd_maniac]

Will upgrading to 1.6 speed up my MVP as well?
Is it stable?

[MeInMaui]

Originally Posted by dvd_maniac

Will upgrading to 1.6 speed up my MVP as well?
Is it stable?

Yes and yes.

[dvd_maniac]

just installed. Will test tommorow.
Thanx...
But still would like to see a place describing all the configurable options in the properties file.