Running linux in a RAM drive, was flash bootable Linux

[Dennis Kibbe]

On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 22:28 -0700, David Bendit wrote:
> I know all about that. Pretty much every LiveCD distro has that  
> capability. What I mean is, could a normal distribution, an
> installed  
> one, have the capability of loading itself into a RAM disk at boot?  
> It would be an interesting way to possibly increase performance in  
> times when data access speed is critical.
> 
> -David 

This is what Linux initial RAM disk (initrd) does in effect.  initrd is
used to load kernel modules during boot before the / directory is
available.

So if you need a driver (say, reiserfs) to access / but it isn't build
into the kernel you can make an initrd that includes the module and it
will get loaded during boot without it you'd get a kernel panic.

I'm sure if you google around you'd find a way of doing what you want.
Perhaps looking at the USB Flash drive OS that FSF sells or Slax will
give you some ideas.  And I'm sure you could base something on Knoppix
as well.

There isn't any reason Knoppix can't be loaded into RAM and with a good
UPS to protect from power outages run pretty much forever so a "normal"
distro could do the same.

dennisk
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