Peter Gamma (Physiologist & Director) Meditation Research Institute Switzerland (MRIS)

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Is Zram a tool which gives LibreOffice on the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w a break-through?

Posted bypg@petergamma.org 1 Comment on Is Zram a tool which gives LibreOffice on the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w a break-through?

Last Updated on June 30, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

  • 512 MB is a bottle neck of the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w
  • specially if we use applications which use huge amount of memory such as LibreOffice.

Kajidataonline from Malaysia about LibreOffice on the Raspberry Pi zero:

“So far its can run as a normal function & I am using the zero 2 w which is much more better”

Kajidataonline from Malaysia about LibreOffice on the Raspberry Pi zero: “So far its can run as a normal function & I am using the zero 2 w which is much more better”
  • But it nice to have a tool to optimize this.
  • I would recomment to choose DietPi as an OS which is optimized for low Ram consumtion as well.
  • The Raspberry Pi zero 2 w would be great device for mobile applications.
  • A 10 000 mAh battery pack can run the device for more than 24 hrs.
  • And especially for mobile Office the Pinephone still cannot convince us personally.
  • The 5.5 inch Pinephone screen is too small for LibreOffice to be usable.
  • With the Raspberry Pi zero 2 we we can choose a bigger screen, for instance 7 inch which should be sufficient for LibreOffice.
  • Furthermore, recently Pine64 has pulled the Pinephone keyoard from the market which is almost a sabotage of our office mobile project on the Pinephone

ZRAM

  • is a Linux kernel module for creating a compressed block device in RAM
  • , i.e. a RAM disk with on-the-fly disk compression
  • The block device created with zram can then be used for swap or as general-purpose RAM disk.
  • The two most common uses for zram are for the storage of temporary files (/tmp) and as a swap device.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zram

  • it can do a lot to perform the speed.

The following video uses the Raspberry Pi zero w 2 with ZRAM

&

shows why you should use ZRAM on your Raspberry Pi:

  • The zero 2 w has only 512 MB Ram.
  • Zram helps to gain Ram.
  • it frees up Ram for other programs to start.
  • it can free up to about 100 MB in example which is a lot of the 512 MB of the zero 2 w.
  • Zram allows a lot of fine tuning to adapt it to your needs.
  • It increases the speed on a Raspberry Pi 4 over all as well.

So to conclude

Zram in principle offers a solution which has many parameters which can be changed to play around with LibreOffice on the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w, to see if we can get it running to work with it satisfyingly. If we are successful, we would have a Raspberry Pi zero 2 w which uses little battery for mobile office applications.

The proof that LibreOffice works on the Raspberry Pi zero 2 w is already there:

Rasperry Pi OS & desktop & recommended software includes LibreOffice & we have a proof of function that LibreOffice works on a Raspberry Pi zero 2 w

So what we discuss here is only for people who want to optimize this setup.