I don't know if this is possible or not, but I think it would be cool to have knoppix take a look at how much RAM the system has, and give the option to load itself into RAM if the user has more than, say 750 or 800MB. My thinking is that it could exist compressed in RAM, in the same way that it is compressed on the CDROM right now. The ram that is not used up to host the file system could be used to run applications, as normal.

If this is possible, I would imagine that this approach would give knoppix a major edge over everything else available. The hard drive is typically the slowest accessing part of any computer system, right? Well, actually the CDROM is slower, Knoppix runs off of CD, and therefore it takes a performance hit vs other distros. If Knoppix ran from RAM, though, it would be faster than HD based distros! It could just use the HD to store user data files [documents, bookmarks, etc.] persistantly between sessions. Additionally, this would free up the CDROM for normal operations again, since once the OS is loaded into RAM, the CD could be removed. Just think, it would be possible to load Knoppix, download an updated ISO to your /home directory (which is stores it on your hard drive), burn a new CD while Knoppix is running, and boot the new CD next time. Instant (clean) OS upgrade without having to worry about backing up your data files first.

I realize that most end users do not have that much RAM, but those who do typically have it just sitting around not doing anything. Plus I've heard it said that when designing a program, you should design for the system of tomorrow in mind, not the system of today. In just another year to two, most systems will contain gobs of RAM, and Knoppix could be ruling the world if it is prepared!

So what do you think? Is this a simple as copying everything into a giant ramdisk? Do I just not have any idea of what I'm talking about and the technical issues involved? I'd love to hear feedback on this idea.