Let's suppose I use a live usb of Mint at boot up. Am I correct in saying the Mint OS would then be transferred to the ram and the OS would run at the ram's data transfer speed as opposed to the usb's data transfer speed? Z/Z

Depends on what you mean by "OS" ... but generally speaking: no

Only a small portion of the "OS" is transferred to run directly from RAM. Anything not loaded into the (relatively small) RAM disk will need to be accessed through whatever medium the OS was loaded from: CD, USB, local disk.

There are some groups/projects out there that attempt to put everything in a RAM disk to increase performance, but a standard Linux Mint Live USB distribution does not.

There's a balance to strike: RAM for OS components versus RAM available for application use. As you increase the RAM consumed by the OS components, you increase general system-level responsiveness and performance. At the same time, you reduce the RAM available for applications. Once the RAM available for applications runs out (either because of the memory requirements of the applications themselves and/or the data they process), your system will start using swap space. Swapping data in and out of swap space is quite slow. Constant swapping can bring a system to its knees. In the most severe cases, thrashing can occur--to such an extent that the computer is essentially deadlocked.

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Thank you. Does the Debian virtual ram disk work well or is still in the trial stages?

I just did a full install of win 7 ultimate to get rid of cluttered parts and I am wondering if the debian method for running from ram is viable for me...

I have an i3 core and 4gigs of ram. Z/Z

It's not Debian-like, but Puppy Linux runs nicely from RAM.

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Someone mentioned that Puppy was fast before but they didn't say exactly why so I really didn't consider it. I am amazed Linux is as big as it is considering it wasn't that long ago that it took up a few megs on a hard disk. I made up a few windows jokes... I am in the middle of an install that started over 12 hours ago... but beating on windows is too easy.

Anyone know if a Mas OS will go on IBM-compatible hardware or is it limited to specialized Apple gear? I wanna pick on the Apple people in a moar meaningful way but I don't know any Z/Z

Dark_Helmet is correct in his (her? you never know) response, but IMO its not the whole story....

If you run most liveCDs (or liveUSBs etc.), and dont have a shortage of RAM, the programs you are using will run from RAM. Its only when you go to open a program that isnt running that the liveCD/USB is accesed. The program is then loaded from the CD/USB into RAM.

So unless you are running out of RAM, once a program is laoded it makes no difference if the source for the program was a CD, USB, HDD or a virtual RAM drive.

Running the whole OS from RAM is O.K. with tiny distros (like puppy) but not really worth it for normal distros. Its one thing to load 128 odd MB into RAM. Its another thing to load 700MB-4GB+ into RAM. Besides the extra RAM use, it also takes time to read and transfer 4GB from the HDD to a virtual RAM disc.

*edit- that is why a lot of the 'running completely from RAM' solutions use stripped down versions of the OS.

With a 4GB laptop, IMO running from a virtual drive just isnt worth it with 'full' distros like debian, mint, etc..

You can install MacOS on newer x86 hardware.

But why bother? Its not cheap to buy MacOS, using the ever-popular 'pirate' editions is madness (you never know if someone has given a free rootkit with our cracked OS, and legal issues) and if you believe that an EULA has any legal basis, you are breaking the law (MacOS can only be installed on 'apple branded hardware' according the EULA).

Thanks cascade.

According to one of the hard and fast Internet rules as dictated by Anonymous "there are no girls on the internet" so I stick to masculine pronoun usage

I feel a great swell of pity when I think about what I would do to someone who came to my door and tried to arrest me for trying to learn about using an operating system. Actually anybody that tries to limit what I can learn will find me less than cooperative.

It may not be prudent but once you have read any EULA you will notice they all say the same thing... " You may have bought this software be WE still own it and you " ... even if I thought ideas were property then by extension once I bought that property I should be able to do anything I want with it.

If I was under the delusion that the Just-Us system actually worked I would release a program with a profoundly evil EULA and spend my life happily throwing Microsoft employees into jail when they violated the "Employees of Microsoft cannot own this software" clause. I am sure the paranoid employees could avoid dling it but ALL of them being hyper-paranoid tech slaves... I am sure they have some cleaning crew or receptionists I can send to prison.

Anyways... I have no desire to lower myself to the level of international law makers so I am going back to my breakfast Z/Z