A RAM-Based Mint?

[jimwg]

Greetings!

I wish to know whether it's possible or if there's any research being done to run Mint mostly or entirely in RAM along the lines of Puppy and Porteus. The energy and speed and flash wear-and-tear savings would be incredible.

Thanks, Mint crew and please keep up the great work!

Jim in NYC

[xenopeek]

Linux Mint is intended for installing on your desktop or laptop. If you want you can mount portions of your filesytem in RAM (using tmpfs), which IIRC is the default for Linux Mint 16 with /tmp. That only works for directories that are okay to be empty on boot.

You can use the boot parameter "toram" on the LiveISO to force it to load completely in RAM. That doesn't work after you have installed Linux Mint, as there's no way to fit your entire hard disk in RAM.

[Dyfi]

It can be done using Refracta tools

http://www.ibiblio.org/refracta/

Run the refracta snapshot to create an .iso, burn this to dvd or usb, and the boot menu will have an option to boot to ram.
I would suggest a simple install to keep the .iso size down and use symlinks to save files to disk.

[Don_Pedro]

jimwg , Hi

25 years ago, to compile Clipper "Summer 87" on a ram disk was already an impossible dream.
Memory ram price was so high. (Time when friends stopped by to see a 10GB HD.)
I always love this idea but for sure nostalgia is hidden there.

Did you evaluate how big your ram disk would be ?
You would need to load your browser too on your Ram drive.
At the end your internet speed will be the "new frontier".
All depends of your front end application.

Nowadays , in fact , a large disk cache does the same job as RAM disk before.
Not need to mount the disk. No need to load with your dedicated software. LinuxMint manage it for you.
You have all your ram memory available, do not forget you lost portion of the ram memory when your declare your Ram disk.

Have a good day, (as we say in NYC)
P.

[zolar1]

You can run mint in ram. Just run a 'Live Version'.

PCLinux OS has an option to remaster it for use on flash drive and remember things. Not sure if it is in ram when loaded or if Mint has a similar feature.