ZRAM support for ARM images
Summary
Enable ZRAM for swap on ARMv7 and aarch64 pre generated images to improve performance and reliability on ARM Single Board Computers such a the Raspberry Pi.
Owner
- Name: Peter Robinson
- Email: pbrobinson at fedoraproject dot org
- Release notes owner:
Current status
Detailed Description
Current Fedora release artifacts for ARM platforms enable a small amount of swap by default. While this has generally works OK in the past it can cause a number of issues primarily wearing out SD cards due to excess use of wear leveling. ZRAM can mitigate this and provide more memory for ARM SBCs by compressing part of memory and using it as a swap space. This provides better performance and improved reliability across this class of device which overall provides a better end user experience.
Benefit to Fedora
Better performance and reliability on low to medium spec ARM Single Board Computers (SBCs) providing an overall better experience for end users.
Scope
- Proposal owners: Package and include zram config and systemd units.
- Other developers: N/A (does not affect developers)
- Release engineering: #7607 (a check of an impact with Release Engineering is needed)
- List of deliverables: N/A
- Policies and guidelines: N/A (No updates to policies and guidelines required)
- Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
Upgrade/compatibility impact
This change will not affect upgrades, they will continue to work as they currently do. This change will only take effect on new installs.
How To Test
The change will be testable on ARM images once the change lands. The amount of swap provided by ZRAM will be testable on various ARM SBCs including both ARMv7 and aarch64.
The exact testing required and how provide feedback on the various ARM SBCs will be updated once the final components are in a build to be tested. Things like performance impact, use on Server/Desktops/MInimal/IoT devices and other metrics will be updated here.
User Experience
Improved performance, stability and longevity of certain types of storage will benefit Fedora ARM SBC users. In general day to day use the end user won't notice any difference in the way they use Fedora.
Dependencies
N/A (no dependencies, this is a standalone independent change but affects both ARMv7 and aarch64 hence the system wide change)
Contingency Plan
Continue shipping images with traditional disk based swap space enabled.
Documentation
N/A (self contained change not visible to end users of developers other then swap appearing on a different "storage" medium)
Release Notes
To be updated once feature is complete