action #89734
closed[SLE-17630][PM-2253] Low mem devices like ARM-based, IoT, VMs, etc. can be installed (or installed faster) when using swap on zram
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Description
Feature aims low memory installations where zram is of a great help.
Feature is available in TW and SLES.
What to cover:
- Low memory installations on different architectures
- Test zram, zram.swap and zram.root options
- Recognize how many modules can be enabled with qt installation with Y2DEUG=1 (each module increases memory consumption)
- Check defaults (zram disabled by default)
- Evaluate how much it speeds up installation to consider usage of zram=1 in some slow installations
- Follow-up ticket for automation
- Provide feedback to the YaST team
Useful links¶
- https://jira.suse.com/browse/SLE-17630
- https://jira.suse.com/browse/PM-2253
- https://jira.suse.com/browse/SLE-17636 (see comment from Lukas with bug references)
- https://github.com/openSUSE/linuxrc/pull/246
- https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Linuxrc
- https://w3.nue.suse.com/~lpechacek/fate-archive/318957.html
Trello card content:
https://jira.suse.com/browse/PM-2253
This is the common scenario of every GA and SP: We keep adding new features and packages, QA tests some of them and then with RC phase, Beta customers start testing. And they find problems. Some of them are usually about not enough memory.
This idea is about using some special Kernel module that compresses the main memory, zram. Fedora already uses that, Raspbian / Ubuntu too. It not only speeds up installation on small-RAM systems, it sometimes makes it even "possible" to install on them.
It's an internal change, I believe that if we test it well, we can introduce it even in SLE 15 SP3.
See more some notes/questions/links in https://trello.com/c/eLEqACEs/3736-zram-zswap-in-inst-sys
Review¶
- https://github.com/openSUSE/linuxrc/pull/246
- https://github.com/openSUSE/installation-images/pull/462
- https://github.com/openSUSE/linuxrc/pull/249
- doc: https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Linuxrc#p_zram
Testing showed overall positive effects (see linuxrc PR) and no visible drawbacks.