"toram" and my persistence parition (7.2)

[linuxthail]

Hi guys,

I have been searching for additional info on the on how exactly the "toram" cheatcode modifies knoppix in the case of a flash disk install, but I cannot find anything.

What I would like is to load my modified knoppix and all my programs into ram at start, i.e. the union between sda1 and sda2 (my persistence drive). What I guess is actually happening is that knoppix is only loading sda1 to ram, and any changes I make have to be loaded from disk as/when needed.

Can anybody confirm how this actually functions, and advise how I can achieve my goal?


##optional read##

Whilst I'm here have a few additional queries:

1. Can I resize sda1 and sda2 partitions after they are made?
2. Is there perhaps a better distro more suited to my goals:

a. run inside portable virtualbox on sdcard
b. all personal data and files other than basic clean OS are encrypted with a good encryption, preferably prompting for password on boot.
c. no size limit on persistence
d. capable of all running from ram to negate the speed and durability issues of sd card.
e. small enough to run in VM with 4GB of ram

im fairly new to linux so please forgive ignorance

thanks,

Andy

[Werner P. Schulz]

You can find all the info how does Knoppix use the cheatcode "toram" within the init-script of minirt.gz
extract-from_init.txt

[linuxthail]

Thank you Werner, I will take a look.

[linuxthail]

I read through that thanks, though not sure how well I understood it.

I figure that since the mounting to ram takes place before I decrypt the persistence drive then it is impossible that any files within it would make it to ram. This is a shame.

[Capricorny]

I read through that thanks, though not sure how well I understood it.

I figure that since the mounting to ram takes place before I decrypt the persistence drive then it is impossible that any files within it would make it to ram. This is a shame.

I suggest you experiment with ordinary Knoppix and encrypted persistence before you work with the toram option. Might get a better concept of Knoppix shame from that. And "mounting to ram" and a few other things too.

The ramdisk approach is quite viable nowadays: You could keep both the compressed DVD (cloop) image and 4GB persistent store in RAM and still have ca 8GB free on a 16GB system. Main obstacle is loading and saving time. Re media wear, reading isn't that hard on the card, so the cloop image could also be left on the card. Speed penalty is very much dependent on type of application.