OS in memory

GGLucas · 2008-05-26 23:38:22

So, when people in the IRC channel were talking about putting /tmp in memory through tmpfs (which I immediately did afterwards ), I was thinking, with ram being dirt cheap these days, and my / only being 3.3G, wouldn't it be possible to copy my entire / into ram at boot, then silently rsync any changes back through a minutely cronjob ? (with frequent backups in case of breakage, obviously)
So, seeing as I have 2 open memory slots and enough money to waste on two 2gb sticks of ram, I thought I'd try it (besides, even if I fail, I'll still have a crapload of ram I can use )

Anyone here tried this before ? I'm thinking with everything optimised as is, and ram being used as a cache intensively already, the performance gain isn't going to be too noticable, but I want more ram and I feel like trying this anyway

lilsirecho · 2008-05-27 00:08:01

The use of ram in the manner you allude to is possible with FaunOS using a boot-to-ram mode.

FaunOS is usb flash installed, 1GB with 600 pkgs of archlinux pacman .

It runs in ram normally without loading into ram/tmpfs using squashfs as the source(thusly compressed).

No speed increase is apparent when using the full ram install, but the amount of ram needed is large because it includes the 1GB of the flash install in addition to the install to ram itself.

Puppy linux CD runs all in ram but needs a core file in HDD or USB flash.

Best to research the systems using ram install before deciding. Uncompressed linux packages would raise the ante on install to ram.

I presently utilize a Compact Flash "true IDE" install card with 45MB/sec speed. In addition, two CF cards in IDE mode as raid0 which have a speed on 66MB/sec. The raid pair totals 15+GB and I load it with pacman -Syuw for a local repo. When desired, a given package is installed into tmpfs uncompressed by pacman. Thus, tmpfs carries the 1GB install plus the added uncompressed package(s). These uncompressed packages are temporary and are deleted when reboot is initiated(unless the user selects save session which then converts the uncompressed package(s) with mksquashfs for permanent inclusion in an overlay).

Many ways to use Linux!

czar · 2008-05-27 14:43:33

When i run a puppy live cd off of the ram everything is blazing fast and opens up immediatly.
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-29 … +copy.html
and i have read of people suggested unionfs to copy changes on the ram to the hdd but i don't know much about it personally.

iBertus · 2008-05-27 15:50:09

Maybe if my thesis research gets slow this summer I can experiment with using RAM for the root filesystem.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-26 23:38:22

OS in memory

#2 2008-05-27 00:08:01

Re: OS in memory

#3 2008-05-27 14:43:33

Re: OS in memory

#4 2008-05-27 15:50:09

Re: OS in memory

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