Hi

I was wondering if it was possible to load the entire contenses of the ubuntu liveCD into the ram so it doesn't need to access the CD as much.

I have 4GB of ram now.

I noticed alot of people reading but not replying. The answer is no, not that I am aware of. Unless of course you install a virtual machine on your current host and then mount Linux in the VM.

Actually, I'm sure it is possible, however it is beyond my scope, at the moment.

You would have to rebuild the live distro to accomplish this - perhaps even trim it down. There are many live distros already that load to ram, though I'm hesitant to recommend any as being *close* to ubuntu.

For some hints and links, check out this thread:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...kware+live+ram

At the moment, it seems as though the idea is being "brainstormed" on the ubuntu forums, and it may become an option in the future. Apparently *Casper* had/has this option, though it's broken.

I'd be surprised if no one *out there* has actually made this happen, but a quick google or two didn't yield anything worthwhile.

cheers,

In theory you could maybe make a ramdisk of the size needed, but you'd have to make the ramdisk every boot and do all the copying, and then I don't know how you would init the actual CD without perhaps adding a bootloader to use ramdisks...you know, this is probably more trouble than it is worth. I would recommend breaking down and getting a 2nd hard disk for Linux, or partitioning one you already have, as overall performance would be better (you do have 4 gigs of RAM and then you wouldn't have to load up some crazy RAM-based environment every time.

As live cd/dvd builder myself, I might be able to add a little input. The way I make my live distro doesn't allow the whole OS to be copied to the ram. UnionFS is what I use to create a fork between the cd/dvd which is read-only, and a ram drive that uses some of the ram which is read-write, this allows me to compile, test and install software to the live cd/dvd, which of course you loose once you reboot.

While it wouldn't be impossible to create live distro that would run entirely from the ram, by the time it would copy across, remembering that the copy process would only be as fast as the slowest device, in this case the cd/dvd drive. It would probably be quicker to install the OS on another drive.

Actually, MEPIS & Knoppix have had this feature for some time -- just add the kernel option "toram" in the GRUB menu at boot time.

I don't know for sure how this works; but since it is a kernel option added at boot, I strongly suspect it is a feature of the kernel. It was documented as a "cheat code" in Knoppix 5; & I discovered that it worked in MEPIS 7 by just trying it. I suggest you do the same.

As to time savings, the copy process in MEPIS 8 w/ a modern CD drive takes about 4 minutes, whereas an install takes 12 or so, not counting the time (including thinking it through) to partition. It is worth the extra boot time if you plan a long session w/ the live CD, are using a lot of s/w from the CD, or need to free the CD for another operation -- like burning an .iso to a CD.

<aside>
I have a work laptop that is infected w/ the XP virus which I wish I could figure out how to get to hibernate in Linux. Then I could run Linux nearly permanently very conveniently.
</aside>

W/ 4 GiB of RAM you could probably load the CD & use the UnionFS at the same time -- each want a minimum of 1 GiB. In MEPIS & Knoppix the kernel option for UnionFS is "aufs". Given that all 3 of these distros are Debian based, & that, at least IMO, this is a kernel feature, just try it. Of course, as fotoguy says, it all disappears at the next reboot.

It doesn't work out of the box, but there is a (somewhat involved) procedure to re-spin a CD to work with the toram option. I've not tried it, but there's an article on it here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/BootToRAM

I've also read that toram in mutually exclusive with a persistent storage partition (i.e. you lose the ability to save changes to a special partition on a USB stick).

I don't know about ubuntu, but you can do it with puppy - with less than 512 meg of ram.

jc

Didn't realise this, I haven't used a knoppix cd/dvd for 4 or 5 years now, I might look at this "toram" option for mine.

Currently Barry Kauler, the developer of puppy is working on 'woof' a distro building system that can use the repositories of other distros to build an iso. He blogs about an ubuntu flavour of puppy.(perhaps someone else can post a link, I am not able to because I have never posted before). Whilst the alpha iso he has released is only 100MB, the build system could be used to include any ubuntu software you wanted, this should boot into RAM if you have enough.

Thanks.

I knew that worked in Knoppix. I don't know how I missed that in the Mepis documentation. It is documented at
http://www.mepis.org/docs/en/index.php/Cheatcodes

I haven't tried it yet, but since you tested it and it's documented, I assume it will work.

I use a Mepis liveCD as my primary tool for investigating sick Windows or Linux systems or salvaging data from them. I know that isn't the intent of a Mepis liveCD and is the intent of other liveCDs. But I know Mepis better, so it is easier to use unprepared (as I usually am when I interrupt ordinary work to deal with a sick computer).

I assumed that salvaging data to CD or DVD (rather than to a network share) would require using some other liveCD that was customized for that purpose and included the "toram" option. But maybe the Mepis liveCD covers more of what I need that I thought.

Yeah I've used my distro for quite a few of these too, I also wanted to encrypt my drives on my laptop and down load decryption keys from an ssh server, buy found no live distros that would do it, so I built my own that would.