Auto Load in RAM

[EBFoxbat]

Still, the only reason for the toram option it to free up the CD and speed things up; Loading everything into RAM in uncompressed form, used or not, just does not make sense.

Why not? There is NO faster way to access data currently than good quality ram on a high-frequency bus. There's just nothing faster short of custom hardware.

[Harry Kuhman]

Why not? There is NO faster way to access data currently than good quality ram on a high-frequency bus. There's just nothing faster short of custom hardware.

Sure, RAM is fast. But it is a finite resource. And understand that when you talk about saving all of these uncompressed applications in RAM you are actually talking about saving them in a RAM disk; this is not the same as having them loaded into memory and running; execuiting any of these programs actually loads another copy of the program into other RAM memory where it can be executed, the RAM disk keeps it's copy. If you had too much money it might make some sense to save lots of programs that you want to run to RAM disk. But not the extensive Knoppix package list, which is a mix of many programs that are very unlikely to ever all be used by any one person.

Since RAM is a finite resource (even if you have too much money you have limmited RAM address space), there is another issue: If Knoppix ever has to use it's swap file because a lot of the RAM the system has is wasted holding unneeded stuff in the ram disk, then this will seriously slow down your application, not speed it up. And it does take the OS some overhead just to manage lots of needless stuff in the RAM, not a lot untill swapping starts but still it is an impact. (I actually have seen some some operating systems that would slow down if you gave them too much RAM memory because they spent too much time mannaging all that space.) If you feel you just have to run from a RAM disk, my advice would be to copy what applications you tend to run to it and leave the rest on disk, where you can still get them if needed. Or even build a system that tracks and loads frequently accesses programs.