Possible?: running only from the ram?

ok, so this is one of those half baked ideas I get sometimes(no drugs involved), kinda like the idea I had that my brother should try making KD in his coffee maker when he didn't have an oven or microwave at university....

First of all.. this would only possible work on machines with 256MB ram+... which isn't really a problem these days.
anyway, what I'm thinking is, use one of the mini knoppix distros that are about 200MB that go on the mini-cdrs. when knoppix boots up, it copies the compressed ISO image onto the ramdisk, and unmounts the cd drive, so it would be running completely from RAM. This has a couple of advantages, namely that it would run faster, and you would be able to use your CD drive.

So.. anyone know if this would be possible?

imho that would be possible..would like to see that too..
here`s a tutorial on ram disks:
http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/No...rticle124.html
btw: some time ago the german magazine `ct showed their "turbo windows" which was running entirely from RAM,which they stuck into an external little box,just like it was a harddisk..

I also don't see why there would be any obstacle in doing this, you could add a bootup switch/option like 'knoppix ramload' or something like that.

Buying 1-2 GBs of memory today costs no more than for instance buying a new graphics card and it would performance-wise undoubtedly be a killer Linux distro...

Edit: Btw, I'd also like to reiterate the importance of freeing up the CD/DVD tray as Small Form Factor PC:s like the Shutlle XPC:s are getting increasingly popular and they have certain limitations like only having one 5.25" slot.

there is a project going on
booting winxp from a CD :-)

Link?

not sure whether there is a link
read it somewhere
it's a school project

there is something that I would like to try as soon as I get my hands on a mobo that supports at least 4 Gb of RAM

Install WinXP on C:
create a Ramdisk of at 2GB to emulate as a local hard disk
Install another copy of WinXP to it (I am not sure whether it will install)
When booting, use the ramdisk as default

It would.

have you tried?

XP allows for multiple installs, easy.... If the RAM disc emulates a hd, then you would be good to go.... playing with a corprate edition of XP on a spare box, I was able to install it 2 times no prob, and XP comes with it's own boot loader in it....

although technically it is not legal, you wouldn't have problems in installing 2 or more versions of retail WinXP in the same compauter :-)

my original question was:
have you tried to install another copy of the OS to a ramdisk?