Extend description of lowmem installs based on a patch suggested by Holger Wansing

1 files changed, 35 insertions, 4 deletions

diff --git a/en/using-d-i/modules/lowmem.xml b/en/using-d-i/modules/lowmem.xml
index 81c1b905f..45af302b9 100644
--- a/en/using-d-i/modules/lowmem.xml
+++ b/en/using-d-i/modules/lowmem.xml
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 <!-- $Id$ -->
 
   <sect3 id="lowmem">
-  <title>Check available memory</title>
+  <title>Check available memory / low memory mode</title>
 
 <para>
 
@@ -14,12 +14,43 @@ you to install &debian; on your system.
 </para><para>
 
 The first measure taken to reduce memory consumption by the installer
-is to disable translations. If that is not sufficient, the installer
-will only load components essential to complete a basic installation
-by default. This reduces the functionality of the installation system.
+is to disable translations, which means that the installation can
+only be done in English. Of course, you can still localize the installed
+system after the installation has completed.
+
+</para><para>
+
+If that is not sufficient, the installer will further reduce memory
+consumption by loading only those components essential to complete a basic
+installation. This reduces the functionality of the installation system.
 You will be given the opportunity to load additional components manually,
 but you should be aware that each component you select will use
 additional memory and thus may cause the installation to fail.
 
+</para><para>
+
+If the installer runs in low memory mode, it is recommended to create
+a relatively large swap partition (64&ndash;128MB). The swap partition
+will be used as virtual memory and thus increases the amount of memory
+available to the system. The installer will activate the swap partition
+as early as possible in the installation process. Note that heavy use
+of swap will reduce performance of your system and may lead to high
+disk activity.
+
+</para><para>
+
+Despite these measures, it is still possible that your system freezes,
+that unexpected errors occur or that processes are killed by the kernel
+because the system runs out of memory (which will result in <quote>Out
+of memory</quote> messages on VT4 and in the syslog).
+
+</para><para>
+
+For example, it has been reported that creating a big ext3 file system
+fails in low memory mode when there is insufficient swap space. If a
+larger swap doesn't help, try creating the file system as ext2 (which
+is an essential component of the installer) instead. It is possible to
+change an ext2 partition to ext3 after the installation.
+
 </para>
    </sect3>