How can I run in RAM after HD install?

[PyreMage]

I was thinking of a mod for this in some future derivative, how's this sound to you. Load usr_cram and image.gz into ram as normal, but have an option to mount an entire partition on /root rather than using a pupfile. Result=greatly increased personal storage size, with snappy ramdisk performance. Perfect solution for developers like myself who are always running out of room in pup001 from compiling apps.

Nathan

I would love to be able to do this. Which brings me to my really newbie question...I told my HDD installation to take over /dev/hda2 and to leave my unformatted-win95(fat32) partition alone, which it did nicely. When I look at the partition in the DRIVES utility it is showing me a size of 1.9GB, and that it is using the ext2 file system; and when I try to "Resize my personal file" that utility says it doesn't exist with this installation.

My confusion comes from reading this thread...am I using the entire 1.9GB or just a file on it? Also, using that same DRIVES utility it says that my /dev/hda1 partition is actually 4.4GB's, is formated ext2, and is unmounted. When I mount /dev/hda1, and it opens up in ROX, it appears to be a carbon copy of what I see when I open /dev/hda2. But, when I open /dev/hda in fdisk, it says that it is still a win95 partition with no formatting.... ...what is a boy to do? My origional intention in creating the two partions was to create a persistant filesystem that I can begin exploring more of Puppy with....like installing Java and Office at the same time as well as the Apache package, etc...

Just as an aside, I have felt a signifigant preformace loss since moving to the HDD installation. It flat just isn't as fast as running from RAM - never will be. I, to, think that loading the entire OS from the HDD into RAM upon startup and only accessing the HDD for data is the perfect solution that billy g. should have figured out a long time ago...imo.

Pyre

[Pizzasgood]

Nope, you don't have a pupfile then. It's actually installed to the partition and already mounted. That resizing utility is only for people with a pupfile. If you want to extend your's, you'd have to use a partition editing tool to resize the partition itself.

I don't know what's up with /dev/hda1 though. Maybe it's an extended partition, meaning that it's like a bucket holding a bunch of other partitions inside it. That's how I have my /dev/hdb2 set up. I don't know a lot about filesystems, so I'll shut up now, before I start babling.

[PyreMage]

Can we mod Puppy to be able to run from RAM on an HDD installation?

Any developers out there?

[pythoncoder]

I hope I'm not missing something obvious here but it strikes me that you could achieve something similar by using two partitions. A smallish boot partition with your pupx file on it and a second ext2 or ext3 partition where you do all your real work. Then configure Puppy to mount the second partition under your home folder.

Using pupx with a boot parameter PSLEEP=999 forces Puppy to run in a ramdisk.

Pete

[PyreMage]

I hope I'm not missing something obvious here but it strikes me that you could achieve something similar by using two partitions. A smallish boot partition with your pupx file on it and a second ext2 or ext3 partition where you do all your real work. Then configure Puppy to mount the second partition under your home folder.

I've been doing something like this that is working out very nicely for me...I installed a 6GB HDD into this laptop and booted puppy off the CDROM as normal. I then opened fdisk and created a single Linux partition using the entire HDD. Then I rebooted again using the CDROM and Puppy created my puppy001 file on /dev/hda1 and populated it. At the same time it has layed down my "formating" making the entire HDD useful. When Puppy has booted, now using my persistant puppy001 on /dev/hda1, I can now access the rest of the HDD for my own personal use; i.e. I move my large files out of my mounted /root directory and onto the root of the HDD in other directories that I have created - such as MyDownloads and MyDocuments. Now I have about 5.5GB's of storage, my origional 256MB puppy001 (expanded to 768MB,) and since I'm booting from the CDROM, I'm running the OS out of RAM.

Now I can install Java, LAMPP, FireFox, and do local workstation programming/debugging, just as if I were on my production server. Then I upload and manage my server when I am done. All of this from a laptop that died from/refuses to run ANY MS product at all...

Using pupx with a boot parameter PSLEEP=999 forces Puppy to run in a ramdisk.

Pete

Does that work for the HDD installation also? Which file is that? If it really is that easy then this entire thread, and all that above, was for naught...oh, well! I love playing with this puppy!

I've revived 7 "dead" laptops now with this OS...and counting!

[Sit Heel Speak]

Using pupx with a boot parameter PSLEEP=999 forces Puppy to run in a ramdisk. Pete

Does that work for the HDD installation also? Which file is that? If it really is that easy then this entire thread, and all that above, was for naught...

Yes, it does work. Specifying PSLEEP=999 in the "kernel" line of grub.exe's menu.lst, or in isolinux.cfg, causes the contents of pup001 to be read into RAMdisk, then copied back upon shutdown.

[PyreMage]

Yes, it does work. Specifying PSLEEP=999 in the "kernel" line of grub.exe's menu.lst, or in isolinux.cfg, causes the contents of pup001 to be read into RAMdisk, then copied back upon shutdown.

All I've got to do now is figure out how to stop laughing long enough to change a line of code!! This is just getting more perfect all the time!

[Sit Heel Speak]

This is just getting more perfect all the time!

Have you tried Puppy 1.0.8+MegaPuppy 2 yet? I can't decide which I like better, Enlightenment with the window transparencies set about 1/3 of the way from opaque, or KDE/Konqueror...

[Sit Heel Speak]

Arrgghhh double post...

[Waikiki Websurfer]

Sit Heel Speak,

Do you have an opinion on which one is the preferred location for the PSLEEP=999 option, grub.exe's menu.lst, or isolinux.cfg? Is there really any difference when it is called?

[Sit Heel Speak]

If you use grub.exe as an executable (i.e. not substituting the mbr) then PSLEEP goes in menu.lst.

If you use LinLd from a floppy then it goes (I *think* ) in isolinux.cfg.

Since my experience is only in

1. the poor man's install, i.e. Puppy core files on disk, c:\grub.exe started from autoexec.bat

and

2. like the poor man's install except on a USB flash key (including isolinux.cfg), booted either from grub on disk as #1 (in which case isolinux.cfg is not used) or from a floppy using WakeUSB, which runs LinLd from an autoexec.bat and (I believe!) references isolinux.cfg on the flash key.

I can give you no general guidance, i.e. I've never done a full disk install, I've never used a CD, I've never used a dedicated ext2 partition. Fastest booting I've seen so far is #1 --47 seconds for Puppy 2 alpha 3 on my PIII-800 Thinkpad. SeaMonkey starts in 4.5 seconds, but subjectively it seems faster than that. I should note here, that the BX chipset on my Thinkpad limits disk speed to UDMA2, i.e. 33Mbps, and the onboard USB slot is only USB 1. After I learn how to recompile the kernel so it will recognize my PCMCIA slot before doing the USB probe, then my flash key will be able to boot through a PCMCIA USB 2 adapter and transfer at USB 2 speed. This will cut boot and start times drastically.

[Waikiki Websurfer]

Hmm... For a GRUB install, it should not make a difference whether or not GRUB stage1.5 and stage2 are called from the MBR or from somewhere else (El-Torito CD or floppy). The MBR will contain a stage1 loader pointing to the next 512 byte sector, which usally tends to be the next sector after the 512 byte MBR on dedicated disks. You can have GRUB pass kernel options to the Linux Kernel being loaded:

[quote]13.3.20 kernel

[veronicathecow]

Tried PSLEEP=999 but no change in load speed and when I tried to run seakmonkey the HD chattered away as normal.
Any ideas?

[WhoDo]

Nope, you don't have a pupfile then. It's actually installed to the partition and already mounted. That resizing utility is only for people with a pupfile. If you want to extend your's, you'd have to use a partition editing tool to resize the partition itself.

Only one problem here: with a normal Type 2 install to a hard drive partition, once Puppy has read the partition size I'm pretty sure that's it for the life of that installation!

I've tried resizing my Puppy partitions to get extra space. It doesn't work because Puppy simply "expands" to fill the partition, leaving exactly the same free space no matter what size the partition is increased to. That is really frustrating!

I can't even copy the partition to another location, create a new partition and copy back. The copied partition still "grows" to fill the new space and leave the same free area.

The only way to get more space is to create an entirely new partition, reinstall Puppy to the new partition and then recreate your configuration from the files on the old partition. It's easier just to reinstall applications from the dotpups.

Cheers