[SOLVED] Relocating Firefox cache to RAM not working

MrCode · 12-17-2010, 01:41 AM

Firefox has this nasty habit of wanting to write to disk just as it's spinning down when I'm on battery...this is of course annoying because it'll probably shorten the life of the disk (it's doing it as I type this post!)

I figured that a solution to that would be to set FF's cache to be in a RAM disk instead of on the hard disk, so I tried following this guide on the Arch Wiki to set it up (the "Relocating only the cache" section). I followed it to the T, and it did nothing to change FF's disk usage. I even tried adding a /tmp entry in /etc/fstab that would supposedly mount /tmp on a RAM disk and pointed FF's cache to that...still no cigar.

My /etc/fstab:

Code:

# 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system>        <dir>         <type>    <options>          <dump> <pass>
devpts                 /dev/pts      devpts    defaults            0      0
shm                    /dev/shm      tmpfs     nodev,nosuid        0      0
none		       /tmp          tmpfs     noexec,nosuid,nodev 1      2

#/dev/cdrom             /media/cd   auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/dvd               /media/dvd  auto    ro,user,noauto,unhide   0      0
#/dev/fd0               /media/fl   auto    user,noauto             0      0

UUID=4e323b77-6fb1-4ea6-ad15-51fec2629bdb swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=502aed13-0ada-49bc-984b-eecf04289c4e /home ext3 defaults 0 1
UUID=87f32edf-ae96-447d-bd8a-2c3626c7b9a1 / ext3 defaults 0 1
UUID=a146e7a7-7b2f-49cd-a928-1be6f75e60d3 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1

Relevant about:config settings:

Quote:

browser.cache.disk.enable = false
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory = /dev/shm/firefox-cache

Screenshot for proof.

What is it that I'm missing here? Is my fstab incorrect? Is there something else I need to do in FF? I've searched Google and LQ about this issue and couldn't find anything other than the same instructions found on the Arch Wiki and the /tmp fstab entry idea.

barriehie · 12-17-2010, 02:49 AM

I've got mine using RAM:

Code:

browser.cache.disk.enable;true
browser.cache.disk.parent_directory;/media/ramdisk/

Perhaps change:

Code:

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory = /dev/shm/firefox-cache

to

Code:

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory = /dev/shm/

FF will make a folder there called Cache to store the file(s) in.

HTH,

MrCode · 12-17-2010, 02:58 AM

Quote:

Perhaps change:

Code:

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory = /dev/shm/firefox-cache

to

Code:

browser.cache.disk.parent_directory = /dev/shm/

FF will make a folder there called Cache to store the file(s) in.

Thanks, that made it create a "Cache" directory, but it's still waking up the HDD any time I'm scrolling or navigating pages. Perhaps this isn't an issue of the cache? Honestly I don't know what else it could be.

I'll keep looking though...

barriehie · 12-17-2010, 09:47 AM

Does it exhibit the same when you launch it in safe mode?

djsmiley2k · 12-17-2010, 09:53 AM

It could be reading cookies, checking history - not everything is stored in the cache I'm presuming...

Someone else had a guide for moving everything that firefox does into a ramdisk. I've done this at home but I dont know if it'd stop the issue your having. I'll see if I can dig out the link.

[EDIT]

Found it : http://www.verot.net/firefox_tmpfs.htm

MrCode · 12-18-2010, 08:40 AM

@djsmiley2k

Sorry for the late reply...I kinda got sidetracked.

I followed the guide you linked to (with a few modifications to apply to my system), and so far, things are looking a lot better disk-usage-wise with FF. Thanks.

I'm gonna go ahead and mark this solved, but I'm still sort of "field-testing" this setup. Basically the only modification I did was to point my FF shortcut to a shell script that runs the rsync script before and after running FF itself (to load/save the profile, respectively), and so far it's working just fine.

I'm not sure if that covers everything, though (although intuitively I don't see why it wouldn't), so hopefully things work out in the long run.

Thanks again for your help!