Any Tools for setting up SSD drives in Mageia

[Fargo]

Does Mageia have any tools for setting up an SSD drive? I know SSD drives should have TRIM and discard and some things set for them to work best. Does Mageia have any tools to help a user setup an SSD drive? This could sway my decision to use Mageia versus other distros.

[doktor5000]

What do you mean by tools? We have a partitioning tool which does alignment by 2MB boundaries, but not more.
Feel free to check https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installation ... e_Drive%29 and the various threads here about SSDs.

[Fargo]

I took a quick look at the wiki. Those are the kind of things I was talking about. I was just hoping that Mageia would have some kind of a gui for making those settings so I didn't have to do them manually in CLI. It would be nice if the OS could recognize a SSD during install and make all those settings automatically. I believe Windows 7 does this, so I am suprised that Linux hasn't caught up to them yet. But I don't know of any distro that does. Everyone requires entering the commands in CLI.

[doktor5000]

Windows 7 does the same thing, it only cares about partition alignment, nothing more.
All settings specific to SSDs you have to do manually under windows, too - like disabling superfetch, readyboost, indexing, adjusting cache buffer or browser cache not to write to SSD and so on.

[Fargo]

Windows 7 does the same thing, it only cares about partition alignment, nothing more.
All settings specific to SSDs you have to do manually under windows, too - like disabling superfetch, readyboost, indexing, adjusting cache buffer or browser cache not to write to SSD and so on.

Hmmm, I helped a friend install Win7 this spring and I could have sworn it set everything up automatically. I know we didn't do anything manually. As I recall we even ran a command or some software to ensure it was setup properly and it said it was. But maybe that was only the alignment. Eitherway, it would still be nice to have a gui tool for doing this in linux. It may be some thing for Mageia to consider. It would certainly give it an advantage over other distros. Thanks for your time.

[zeebra]

It's very easy. Just open /etc/fstab and add the option "discard" to your SSD partitions. This enables the trim function. But mostly trim is no longer relevant for newer SSD disks as they have similar functions inbuilt. I also add "noatime" option to my SSD disks. I also disable strigi and nepomuk in KDE to avoid indexing work.

Yes, sure discard could potentially be enabled by default, but to prevent problems it isn't.
Personally I find the Windows method more annoying, where you have to insert the driver CD and install stuff from that.

[Fargo]

Its not that I can't do it by CLI. I just thought it would be fairly simple for someone to make a script with a GUI that does it. That would be much easier for new users to properly setup a SSD.

What are the opinions on the F2FS file system? Will that make setting up SSD drives easier as well? Seems like it should since it is made for flash drives. I am planning on trying it as soon as I start seeing in available at install time.

[zeebra]

I am sure someone could setup a script to modify fstab. Probably one already exist, but there are very few people who need it. Most newbies don't care, whole most people who are not newbies would prefer to edit fstab manually and have no issues doing so.

[Fargo]

I am sure someone could setup a script to modify fstab. Probably one already exist, but there are very few people who need it. Most newbies don't care, whole most people who are not newbies would prefer to edit fstab manually and have no issues doing so.

I think anyone who spends the money to buy an SSD is going to care if it is set up properly or not. Even if they are a Linux newbie I think they will care. Why would you not want your expensive hard drive set up properly to give the best performance and longest life. Even a newbie willl want that. Or at least they will once they find out they should.

Windows users on the other hand may not. They will just assume that Windows will automatically do it correctly. I did. But with the information on all the linux forms that SSDs need to have TRIM set in Linux, you quickly decide it should be done. Now whether or not you are comfortable to trust a strangers command line solutions is a different story. (Not that there is likley anyone here that would give someone destructive commands.) That is why I thought a simple GUI to set up trim would be nice.

[zeebra]

Well, that is the problem then. They assume it is setup correctly in Windows, while it isn't.

You MUST use the installation disk for Windows to enable SSD correctly. It does not come out of the box correctly. Besides, SSD with Windows have a number of issues as Windows has lots of functions that writes to the disk all the time, shortening the lifetime of the disk, unless you do a lot of manual optimization. I feel much safer using an SSD with GNU/Linux, even without trim, than I do using Windows on an SSD.

Besides, like I said, most disks don't need to use trim these days, modern SSD disks have these functions inbuilt in their firmware.

And, I never saw any option like the one you mention, in Windows. You can't simply tick "enable trim" in Windows, which means it will be far less transparent than in GNU/Linux when you enable SSD functions by installing a lot of software in Windows. I mean, as far as I know, Windows does not even have proper Sata Ahci support without driver CDs, while the Linux kernel support Sata Ahci SSD (& Raid) out of the box.

XP for example is not possible to install on Sata at all. While on Linux it has been possible for a very long time. I mean, I even remember back in the old days, say 10 years ago that Linux Kernel also supported Arm processors. At the time I had no idea what that was.

It's no point arguing about this. It is how it is.
http://superuser.com/questions/346606/i ... -etc-fstab

[Fargo]

So what if you have to use the install disk for Windows SSD. Thats typically a matter of clicking on the .exe file and following directions. Anyone who can install their own SSD can do that. Secondly, just because Windows doesn't have a gui to do this, doesn't mean Linux shouldn't. Does Linux always have to follow Windows or can Linux lead? Besides, there probably is a gui to do it from the SSD install disk. Finally, I've used SATA drives in WindowsXP for years and never had any issues with them. So I don't know what you are talking about here. They were not SSD drives, but XP clearly supports SATA drives. I might have installed drivers from a disk but thats not a big deal. Its easier than configuring by GUI.

I think its a mistake to say Windows doesn't do something just because its not included in the Windows OS by default. If the aftermarket support or device drivers do it. Windows does it. Linux is not just competing with the bare WindowsOS. It is competing with Windows plus all the aftermarket software stuff that is out there. So until the hardware manufacturers start including the same tools for Linux as they do for Windows, its up to the linux/distro developers to create those tools. Its not a fair fight by any means. But it is what it is.

Sorry if I come off as being a Windows lover looking for a fight. I'm certainly not. I'm just a linux user with no CLI knowledge and quite frankly don't think it should be needed for simple task in setting up an OS. I hope to see Linux get better than WIndows and Mac. Not just follow the pack. Mageia has great tools in its Control Center. I thought this would be another fantastic addition.

Thanks for the link and all the input. I appreiate the dialog from everyone. I'll have to check out the Gnome disk utility. I'm a KDE user, but if its a good utility it might be able to be ported over. Or at least installed on a KDE system.

[doktor5000]

You can install it without issues, it doesn't need to be ported. Please mark the thread accordingly by editing the topic of the first post and prefix it by [DONE], thanks

[Fargo]

I haven't installed it yet. But from screen shots I've viewed I don't see a 'TRIM' feature in the Gnome Disk program either. I'll try to give it a look to see though. If I can find a handy trim utility I'll come back and mark it as DONE. Although if it does do it, it would still be a good tool to have as a standard install in the Control Center. Thanks again to everyone.

[doktor5000]

That's because there is no trim feature in gnome-disks. There are two handy trim utilities, the one is hdparm and the other is fstrim.