Lightweight CLI OS for DragonBoard 410C

Products Support DragonBoard410c
#1

Hi,

Couple of days ago I got my dragonboard 410C pre flashed with Android. I’ve re-flashed it with Linux based GUI OS (http://releases.linaro.org/96boards/dragonboard410c/linaro/debian/latest/dragonboard-410c-sdcard-installer-*.zip).

I’m experiencing slower and I hope it is due to the memory occupied by GUI. So I followed this guide (Disabling graphics interface (Debian) - 96Boards) to disable the GUI which increases the memory nearly 200 MB.

I’m looking for an lightweight CLI OS which is capable of running on DragonBoard 410C. Kindly help me find the right OS.

#2

Hi @absoluteabutaj,

You can use light weight Developer image [1] which will give you access to headless system. Developer image should be flashed using fastboot and you can find the instructions in doc repo [2].

Thanks,
Mani

[1] http://releases.linaro.org/96boards/dragonboard410c/linaro/debian/latest/linaro-buster-developer-dragonboard-410c-528.img.gz
[2] Linux Host Installation for DragonBoard-410c - 96Boards

#3

@Mani, Thank you for the super fast response, I’m looking at it now.

#4

How are you measuring memory usage? Some ways to measure are misleading and turning off services should not cause more memory to be used.

#5

I’ve used the terminal command cat /proc/meminfo also I’ve used the nmon for real-time tracking of the resources

#6

I’ve used the terminal command cat /proc/meminfo also I’ve used the nmon for real-time tracking of the resources

Which value are you reading from /proc/meminfo?

nmon looks like the primary value is displays is MemFree. That is not
a suitable way to measure the memory footprint of a workload because it
ignores the effect of cached disk blocks (using the RAM to cache disk
blocks causes the system to speed up, not slow down).

#7

Here is the value which I’ve got from running cat /proc/meminfo

Screenshot%20from%202019-06-26%2010-15-18
Screenshot%20from%202019-06-26%2010-15-18379×769 40.5 KB

#8

And here is the value I’ve got from running nmon

Screenshot%20from%202019-06-26%2010-51-30
Screenshot%20from%202019-06-26%2010-51-30943×191 24.9 KB

#9

Is the meminfo from the good case or the bad case? You originally mentioned that turning off the GUI caused in increase in RAM use…

#10

It’s with the good case, because I’ve re-flashed the system with linaro-developer OS which is using minimal memory when it is ideal. But when I was using it with GUI it was consuming about 200MB more than the mentioned value.

#11

I think we probably don’t need to follow this through.

I’m still puzzled by your original statement (that running without the GUI used 200MB more than running with the GUI) and suspect a measurement error but perhaps it doesn’t matter either way since you have a solution that works for you.