windows vista readyboost ,readydrive vs linux ?

What are ready boost and ready drive in vista ?

any features in linux like these ?

what software ?

Wikipedia and google are your friends:

ReadyBoost

ReadyDrive


For ReadyBoost... well, you don't need it. First of all, flash drivers are slower than RAM. Either you add more RAM or add more swap. Besides, cheapo flash-drivers won't help much the cause, considering how fragile they are and the limited numbers of "writing" they can take. On the long run, RAM is cheaper and far more efficient. And God only knows what would happen when you accidentally remove a USB flash in use with critical system data on it...

Personally, in Windows XP, if I have two (or more) HD's, I usually let both have a reserved space for Virtual Memory (AKA swap). Windows XP can effectively use the Virtual Memory from the HD with less usage.

As useless as I think this feature is, yes, Linux has a similar feature still on its alpha stages, called SwapBoost:

http://ubuntu-tutorials.com/2007/07/...esters-wanted/

ReadyDrive, on the other hand, can be useful for laptops, reducing battery usage and boot speed. However, some claim this feature is not working as it should. Others go as far as calling it vaporware:

So, there is nothing here ground-breaking and Linux users can rest assured that we are not missing anything important.

True. If there was always enough RAM, we wouldn't need swap at all, and even less any "extend your memory to a flash drive" -solutions. On my personal computer swap is almost never used, but I still keep it "just in case", because there are times when swap is needed. Anyway, you shouldn't be using your swap fully all the time - or if you are, you either don't have enough space reserved for swap, or just don't have enough RAM. In that case I suggest you both check the maximum size of your swap file/partition, increase it if needed, and buy more RAM. On the other hand, if you don't run out of RAM all the time, do have swap and you don't run out of it, I see no real reason to "extend RAM" to a flash disk. I see it as an action similar to using swap, so it's all the same if you increase your swap partition/file size. Like it was pointed out, then you can't accidentally pull off the external media which is used for something, possibly pretty important, as the swap is on your harddisk.

(Internal) harddisks, where swap is usually stored, are slower than RAM. That's why you want to use RAM whenever possible, not swap, and even less anything else that might be even slower. So..I find it odd that some people advertise USB sticks (for example) that you can use to "extend your Vista's memory resources" when needed. And I find even more odd that some people actually buy them for that reason, and again some of them actually pay more for it than for a "regular" USB stick that doesn't advertise that.

I've only had a couple of brief "introductions" to Windows Vista, but according to what I've learned this far, there is nothing ground-breaking there anywhere, that wouldn't exist in some form or other in the other operating systems as well. I can't do much about Vista being a resource hog who says it needs some USB cadgets to fill in when RAM runs out, but I can wish people used their brains (in form of questions, for example) and didn't believe in those crap ads.