Tiny Core Linux
Off-Topic => Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge => Topic started by: daxm on May 03, 2009, 10:27:42 PM
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With RAM being relatively cheap and HDD throughput being such a bottleneck I've loved the ideas behind TinyCore Linux. (TinyCore Linux's concept that a HDD is to RAM is what a tape drive is to a HDD.) The idea that the WHOLE OS is running in RAM and that the HDD is just for archiving purposes really rings home with me!
Sadly, I have yet to find a Linux distro that shares TinyCore's ideals while yet allowing for larger than 3GB of RAM. (i.e. a 64 bit Linux OS that runs purely in RAM and archives to the HDD). I even read the whole CLFS doc hoping that it would discuss the idea of booting to tmpfs filesystems.
So, to my question. I'd like to find/build a 64 bit Linux distro to access my additional RAM, to run in RAM, and use the HDD as an archive/backup mechanism. I've even speculated how the system would boot (load a very small OS off of the HDD, mount a tmpfs, tar -zxvf archived/backup file to tmpfs filesystem, chroot to the tmpfs mounted dir. Then occasionally archive tmpfs filesystem to protect against loss of power.) Honestly I have no idea how to do this though. :-(
Any suggestions on where I could get started? (The best option being that it already exists, of course.)
The end goal is a "normal" home workstation that runs VMWare Server, GNS3/Dynamips and various typical office type apps (seamonkey, openoffice, VLC client, etc).
Any suggestions/hints/miracles are greatly appreciated.
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TC places everything into the initrd... could start by seeing how to create one.
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You could also just compile a 64-bit kernel for TC (remember to enable 32-bit functionality) and so you can access all the ram. For each app there's still the 4gb border, but this solution might be enough.