Thread: system in RAM

eurocarpc,
My first setup used an initrd to accomplish what you mention. However, I used RH9, and at that time, initrd's were limited to 4 MB. However, this was enough to get the system running, and all variables which needed to be written off of the HD (SQL Database, logs, etc). I then mounted the HD as read-only and used it to start X and such.

I kept corrupting the SQL Database, because originally I had it read/write on the HD (2nd partition). This worked for about 2 years, then I switched to Puppy Linux, and the read/write parts are mounted from /dev/ram devices. This has been working for about 2 years now (maybe longer), and hos not corrupted the HD or SQL databases.

"Speeding things up" was not really my goal, I was more about reliability. However, the unit is a PIII 1 Ghz, and can rip dvds/CDs GPS Nav, and playback mp3s simultaneously without problem.

Just my 2 cents.

I never kept a work log on this site, because I finished almost everything before joining the forums. As far as a list of things I did, you can start here:

My Website

I didn't talk about the exact details, but what I ended up doing is mounting /dev/ram1 on /mnt/disk and formatting it. Then I placed whatever files I needed there, and unmounted it. Next, I dd it to a file (dd if=/dev/ram1 of=/myfile.img). When I boot, I dd the file back to the ram1 device, then mount it all in the rc.local init script.

Again, the goal was not the same. I wanted reliability, so my databases are copied to ram drives, and all /var/log files. I even put in a menu option to commit the database back to the harddrive, just so I could change settings and still have them on next reboot.

I've been looking at using tinycore linux -- www.tinycorelinux.com ... It seems to very cleanly approach the "system in ram" issue...and has a decent repository of packages, and a super easy way to make new ones...

One thing I like about it is also that you can mix "run-from-ram" apps with some apps stored on disk and mounted via loopback from a file.