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Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1

flash expander flashexpander

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#1 myname70

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Posted 18 April 2013 - 11:37

Hi, I am looking for Flashexpander plugin for Openpli2.1. Where can I find it?



Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #2 Erik Slagter

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Posted 18 April 2013 - 19:23

There is no "flash expander plugin" for the dm800 (at least not for OpenPLi), you won't need it.


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Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #3 myname70

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Posted 18 April 2013 - 20:38

There is no "flash expander plugin" for the dm800 (at least not for OpenPLi), you won't need it.

Thanks. There is a flashexpander for DM800HD but for some other images I used (oe1.6 and oe2.0) (ex.newnigma2, tsimage, dreamelite). I used it to be able to install more plugins, since the flash memmory was not enough. How can check onOpenPli the available free flash memorry?



Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #4 gorski

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Posted 18 April 2013 - 22:10

Indeed, the memory is way too small for all that we have to play with, so it is needed (sorry but...).

 

The best I know is PBNIGMA, with their Device Manager - it can do the lot, by far the best in our little universe!

 

It contains the Expander as only a little piece of it all - the thousands of lines of code for a great reason - setting it up from grounds up properly...

 

Search for my "Pretty thorough tutorial for PBNIGMA" and you will find all the details re. this little marvel, that started with DBox2 and then it continued in DB and so on...


<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #5 Erik Slagter

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Posted 19 April 2013 - 08:13

I am really puzzled how you get the flash full on a dm800... But I also know some people always manage, indeed.


* Wavefrontier T90 with 28E/23E/19E/13E via SCR switches 2 x 2 x 6 user bands
I don't read PM -> if you have something to ask or to report, do it in the forum so others can benefit. I don't take freelance jobs.
Ik lees geen PM -> als je iets te vragen of te melden hebt, doe het op het forum, zodat anderen er ook wat aan hebben.


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #6 Dimitrij

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Posted 19 April 2013 - 09:04

There is no "flash expander plugin" for the dm800 (at least not for OpenPLi), you won't need it.

Thanks. There is a flashexpander for DM800HD but for some other images I used (oe1.6 and oe2.0) (ex.newnigma2, tsimage, dreamelite). I used it to be able to install more plugins, since the flash memmory was not enough. How can check onOpenPli the available free flash memorry?

http://openpli.org/f...ndpost&p=322024


GigaBlue UHD Quad 4K /Lunix3-4K/Solo 4K


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #7 gorski

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Posted 19 April 2013 - 09:13

Ah, it's not that difficult, if you're a "serious hobbyist" and like to (really) play/test a lot... :D (Btw, how big is that flash?)

 

Tens of MB for picons, then tens of MB for EPG (motorised and multiple heads static dish owners), a few big, juicy skins (like HD Glass, for instance, which have extra downloads to perform, once installed), a myriad of plugins, tools, emus, nowadays streaming galore to be done, whether from the net (sometimes those need to download something to work properly) and whatnot...

 

Of course, one can easily put/direct picons and EPG (in some images you do not need to know telnet commands, which is too much for a lot of us) to a USB stick, for instance but...

 

Some recs only have 1 USB port (on the outside), for instance - and if one uses a (USB) HDD there - well, it is not clever to put picons and EPG on the moving parts HW and so on... So, in some cases it is really needed to do some extra cha-cha, to get everything going (if you do not have eSata HDD), by installing an extra board internally, to have another USB port for a USB stick inside the rec... I mean, honestly speaking, whomever thought of 64MB flash in today's Sat TV environment is a jerk! How can you make a serious machine with 64MB of flash and only one USB port? Jeez...

At any rate, it is much better to have options and Flash Expander certainly gives us options. And I am grateful for such options, for sure! From Gekko37 and co. in DBox2 days, with an extra HW installation, which made the plugin needed onwards...

 

In fact, I think it is better to have more options in all instances of our hobby - whether it is an excellent (PB) Device Manager and not Autofs (OpenPLi) or a (HD Glass) skin, with many options to customise it all according to one's needs and not a coder's idea and so on and so forth.

 

Of course, this is speaking for myself only, explaining why I appreciate such plugins and generally speaking FLEXIBILITY as such... Just so there is no misunderstanding... ;)


<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #8 Lost in Space

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 09:58

Flodder ist now another option, but I'm sorry it is maybe too primitive :P



Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #9 MiLo

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 13:15

Ah, it's not that difficult, if you're a "serious hobbyist" and like to (really) play/test a lot.

I never had problems with the flash being too small. And I'm a developer, I've run all kinds of things on it... 

Tens of MB for picons

picons can be placed on any device, no need to put them in flash. You can even hot-plug it, it will pick up new picons automatically, or remove the stick if you want to use something else there.

then tens of MB for EPG

EPG is stored in RAM. It does not use flash, or any other storage device at all.

I mean, honestly speaking, whomever thought of 64MB flash in today's Sat TV environment

It's still twice as much as its predecessor, the 7025, which only had 32. And honestly, would you pay like $20 more for the box only to have more flash?


In any case, the box just runs linux, so you can use whatever means you like to extend the filesystem. Simplest would be to use unionfs and merge it with an ext3 partition on a stick. Or just copy whole subtrees to USB and overmount them on the internal flash.
You're free to write and submit a plugin to arrange that for you.
Real musicians never die - they just decompose

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #10 Lost in Space

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 14:45

Done ;)

 

Flash Expander = overmount /usr Subtree

Freeze Plugin = merge a USB/SATA device with Flash via unionfs

Flodder Plugin = flodd whole root from Flash to USB/SATA

 

But I would like to see more and better Plugins from others, because sometimes I start feeling already like a zoo owner with too many animals to feed.


Edited by gutemine, 23 April 2013 - 14:46.


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #11 gorski

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 19:06

Start looking at PBNIGMA, GM... Noavail already told you a few things about it, so...

 

For the same reason I am directing GM to PB, I can state the same for your suggestion, MiLo - I am not a developer (I'm from Humanities) but that is not a problem, since PB have an excellent Device manager with that app/tool as a part of it...

 

MiLo, why didn't you go to DBox2 days? What was that like - 8MB? Heh, that functioned well, also - even though it was so limited... :D But you didn't because I mentioned that it was precisely there that the "expanding" draws its roots from... For a reason!

 

Sorry, I have to note that you conveniently evaded some points I made for precisely the same reason... :)

 

Newer machines have an ever expanding/bigger flash and you say it's for no reason?

 

Btw, I wouldn't expand to a device with moving parts... ;)


<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #12 MiLo

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 19:19

Even though a gigabyte flash chip will cost less than a dollar or so, you cannot simply glue it to the board and hope to use it. It'll require lots of wiring to the CPU in order to access it, and that will take away a few dozen IO pins, thus causing other design issues. Bigger (or faster) flash means more pins. Taking this into account the $1 flash chip quickly adds $20 per unit to the selling price. That's why the boxes usually just make do with whatever flash was already coupled with the CPU module. Not because of the price of flash, but because of the cost of the design for an extra flash chip.

Regardless of how much flash they add, it'll never be enough, and there'll always be demand for more.

 

I'm not arguing that "less is better", I'm convinced that over 99% of the users will never ever fill their flash.

 

If you want another quick way to reduce the image size, you can stuff everything under /usr/lib/enigma/python into a ZIP file, and OpenPLi will happily use that instead of the raw files...


Real musicians never die - they just decompose

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #13 gorski

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 19:23

No need for any of "go invent hot water" stuff - the plugin is there and it's simple, elegant and functioning. No need for extra flash and whatnot...


<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #14 Lost in Space

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Posted 23 April 2013 - 21:05

I'm sorry, but I prefere to play with my own toys :-)

 

Rgearding the compress everything and be happy  approach -.Flash Filesystems are typically already heavily compressing (zlib about 2-2.5, xz >3). Therefore putting things into a ZIP will not give you much except that you eat up CPU for uncompressing it and Memory for caching it, as no CPU can execute compressed code directly.

 

This is exactly why UBIFS actually performes ways better then jffs2 ... there are nice benchmarks and slides to proove that.

 

My Cramy Plugin could put EVERYTHING into a maximal compressed read only squashfs - like the DM7025 approach on steroids => you got plenty of free space but not so good performance. Hence there is always a trade off to be kept in mind. The only point is  that an image provider has to do such decisions for (most) of the users and therefore he should know what he does and why - and if he doesn't he should try out.

 

This is what I call research and ongoing investigation, and this is more then cut and paste and praise other inventions, because only this way you gain real knowledge and understanding.

 

And no, I'm not understanding a lot of things - but I try.

 

And hot water is a very nice invention of you like to drink tea on a daily basis.


Edited by gutemine, 23 April 2013 - 21:07.


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #15 gorski

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 00:34

You last sentence means nothing, so stick with programming... :rolleyes:  Btw, I prefer hot chocolate with milk only... :D

 

Also, no to GM products, thanx a bunch! :D PB over GM fo rme, any day! It's all there already! B)

 

P.S. When will you start testing your own code? :o

 

P.P.S. You're in OT again, trying to constantly establish your "dominance"... Here: you are superiour to me in programming. You can relax now... :P


Edited by gorski, 24 April 2013 - 00:37.

<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #16 Lost in Space

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 08:51

I'm not really OT, and besides 2 sentences I tried to answer MiLo's points.

And as I had the hard choice to spend 1h fixing FE for PLi images or produce something which is by far simplier and changes nothing in the image (not even fstab and it has not even a Plugin as the is no need for it) I better spend the 1h to produce Flodder. And Flodder has no backup problems either as it flodds out the entire root of the Flashimage to the Flodder device, which means you can easily backup it too which is one of the big flaws of both FE and Freeze that there is no simple backup/restore possibility.

 

Hence I'm not OT, as I'm giving FE advice instead of telling the pople multiply that they are using the 'wrong' Image.

 

And nobody is forced to use mystuff :P 


Edited by gutemine, 24 April 2013 - 08:52.


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #17 gorski

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 09:12

If you have the right tools - no image is "wrong". As I said, stick with programming, where you are a pro - but equally, leave the thinking to the pros... :)

 

And as many have told you, until your stuff is bomb-free and reasonably tested and guaranteed by you - no, thanx...


Edited by gorski, 24 April 2013 - 09:12.

<span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'>Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large proportion of men, even when nature has long emancipated them from alien guidance..." I. Kant, "Political writings" (1784)</span><br /> <br /><span style='font-family: comic sans ms,cursive'><a class='bbc_url' href='<a class='bbc_url' href='http://eserver.org/p...lightenment.txt'>http://eserver.org/p...ent.txt</a>'><a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a>'>http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/kant.html</a></a> - the jolly text on Enlightenment, at the basis of Modernity...</span>

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #18 Lost in Space

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 10:22

There is only one problem, if you tell me to stay away from something I'm so dumb to consider this as an invitation.

 

Remember, gutemine is a natural blonde ...

 

To be honest I take myself the freedom to decide who is a pro and what and where I spend my time with on my own and constantly ignore any advice in this direction.

 

And believe me, I'm neither a programmer nor a pro, but I'm good in reading when somebody runs out or arguments and starts to repeate old ones  :D


Edited by gutemine, 24 April 2013 - 10:23.


Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #19 MiLo

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 10:45

...Therefore putting things into a ZIP will not give you much...

Yes it does. Apart from the compression algorithm used, the overhead per file in the zip file is much smaller. On the 7025 you can see the space savings. It's akin to squashfs versus jffs2, not needing to be able to update individual files makes the filesystem much smaller.

This is exactly why UBIFS actually performes ways better then jffs2

No.
The biggest performance improvement is the use of the page cache. Both systems can be configured to use the much faster LZO compression, but even with the same compression in place, ubi outperforms jffs2.
Real musicians never die - they just decompose

Re: Flashexpander for DM800HD OpenPli2.1 #20 Lost in Space

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Posted 24 April 2013 - 13:18

Yes, i agree, this is what I meant with savings on the Memory (the tree algo is also superior but this is nothing new) and this together leads to better performance ob UBIFS. The real interesting advantage of UBIFS is the write performance, but on a Receiver the filesystem is hardly written (except on a Software Upgrade) hence that difference is not so usefull as it could be.

 

And yes, I said already that with Cramy I tried our putting everything in a squashfs with mximal possible compressuon, but if everything is so heavily (read only) compressed there is a trade off on memory and CPU - if you try old 7025 images without Squashfs you see the difference. DMM BTW is already overpushing the usage of squashfs images for specific stuff in the OE 2.0 Images to save sufficient space to squeeze everything into the 64MB Flash.

 

This is the reason why SqueezeOut has such a big performance impact on the Browser and HBBTV simply by eliminating these squashfs and putting their content uncompressed in ext4. Then you save Memory and CPU and the 500hd/800se boxes perform almost as good as the 7020hd which actually has the same CPU. The only remaning trade of is the smaller Memory of these boxes, but at the Moment a swapfile can bring them close enough to be accaptable.

 

I even tried out XZ compression in the UBIFS filesystem, which works too, but because uncompress eats too much Memory for the small boxes the possible level of compression is limited and therefore not the full space savings (about 4-5MB compared to zlib) are possible and you gain only 1-2MB extra space.

 

You can even try this out by setting in dFlash root compression to XZ and do backup/restore, but be patient, as this will need lots of CPU when doing it on the Dreambox itself.

 

Believe me, I tried out all these possibility already :-)

 

gutemine


Edited by gutemine, 24 April 2013 - 13:21.




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