Hi all,

I was working with a flash install of knoppix and it seems really slow, much slower than I would expect.

so I run a command like dpkg on knoppix running without any persistent image (just using the ram of the system) and it goes instantly.

Code:
time sudo dpkg -i mame_0.186-dmo1_i386.deb mame-data_0.186-dmo1_all.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package mame.
(Reading database ... 449729 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mame_0.186-dmo1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mame (1:0.186-dmo1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mame-data.
Preparing to unpack .../mame-data_0.186-dmo1_all.deb ...
Unpacking mame-data (1:0.186-dmo1) ...
Setting up mame-data (1:0.186-dmo1) ...
Setting up mame (1:0.186-dmo1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...
Processing triggers for menu (2.1.47+b1) ...

real    0m13.315s
user    0m6.271s
sys    0m5.182s
If I run with a persistent hard drive image, I get snappy results also.

However, when I use a flash drive it's a different story.

Running the same command under a persistent flash drive it takes forever...

Code:
time sudo dpkg -i mame-data_0.189+dfsg.1-1_all.deb mame_0.189+dfsg.1-1_i386.deb 
Selecting previously unselected package mame-data.
(Reading database ... 449729 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mame-data_0.189+dfsg.1-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking mame-data (0.189+dfsg.1-1) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mame.
Preparing to unpack .../mame_0.189+dfsg.1-1_i386.deb ...
Unpacking mame (0.189+dfsg.1-1) ...
Setting up mame-data (0.189+dfsg.1-1) ...
Setting up mame (0.189+dfsg.1-1) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.23-2) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-9) ...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.60) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...

real    6m23.851s
user    0m8.202s
sys    0m6.430s

Why is flash so slow? I wouldn't expect it to take multiple minutes to do these things. 6 minutes seems like an eternity.

Is it because it wants to journalize everything with reiserfs?