bit wrote
So basically a filesystem built on allocating layers of file space for RAM? What happens when RAM is less then the size of a hard disk?
Would this module system use a swap partition to allocate ram (when needed) so it doesn't produce ram overflow?
You can have swap, I don't because I don't need it.
The base iso of alphaOS is like 200M, I have 6GB RAM
Right now I am running with 40 modules/bundles and free gives me
free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 5864 680 3515 305 1668 4637
You don't put whole harddisk in RAM - You use it in the same way you do on normal Arch.
During nomal usage I have never maxed out RAM.
I did it once using tor-browser-hardened that leaks memory so after a few hours
the OS froze.
Filesystems in liveCD Page 11 wrote
• squashfs consumes more CPU(%sys).
• limited RAM size makes squashfs slower, even in loopback mount.
I have run my system with 150 bundles and yeah it probably is a little less snappy but
still very fast.
OS ran fully in RAM is of course very quick in itself.
You don't have to execute alphaOS fully in RAM, i.e if you don't put parameter "toram" in
boot command line you will not run fully in RAM. Linux kernel will of course cache a lot
of OS data in RAM as it is very intelligient.
bit wrote
Does that mean the system would get significantly slower if too many modules are "loaded"
No
bit wrote
Does this apply to the live CD only or would it adapt to a 500 GB Hard drive and 4GB of ram without overflow?
It will not overflow
My setup is booting from USB. USB has grub2 boot loader and menu.lst with a shitload of entries for alphaOS.
The actual data is on internal harddrive on a normal NTFS partition. I boot it frugal.
menu.lst example
menuentry "alphaOS 17.2" {
set my_root="172alphaos"
search --no-floppy --file --set=root /$my_root/boot/initrfs.img
linux /$my_root/boot/vmlinuz from=$my_root toram noxorg
initrd /$my_root/boot/initrfs.img
}
so the boot dir on internal NTFS hdd looks like
(there is also alot of files with .sb renamed to .off so as not to auto load at boot )
|-- alpha_17.sb
|-- boot
| |-- initrfs.img
| `-- vmlinuz
|-- extra_17.sb
|-- hwdb.sb
|-- modules
| |-- 2222222minidlna-conf.sb
| |-- DropboxGUI.sb
| |-- avahi_gdbm_gst-plugins-base-libs_gstreamer_gtk2_hunspell_icu_imake_libcups_libevent_mime-types_mozilla-common_nss_yasm_zip.sb
| |-- bashrc.sb
| |-- calligra-krita.sb
| |-- devel_17.sb
| |-- dlauncher_efgee.sb
| |-- dnssec-anchors_ldns_libedit_openssh-7.1p2.sb
| |-- earlyoom-0.7.sb
| |-- firefox.sb
| |-- flashplugin-11.2.202.559-1.sb
| |-- gimp.sb
| |-- htop.sb
| |-- icecat-bin.sb
| |-- linux_4.1.6_src.sb
| |-- lsof.sb
| |-- meld-dev.sb
| |-- minidlna.sb
| |-- mkvtoolnix-gtk.sb
| |-- nspr.sb
| |-- python2-cairo.sb
| |-- python2-gobject.sb
| |-- rpmextract.sb
| |-- strace-unwind.sb
| |-- systemd-dummy.sb
| |-- temp-wlan.sb
| |-- tor-browser-en-7.0.7.sb
| |-- tor-browser-hardened-5.5a5.sb
| |-- torsocks.sb
| |-- transmission-gtk.sb
| |-- vboxuser_input_group.sb
| |-- vdev-20160120.sb
| |-- wavemon.sb
| |-- xfburn.sb
bit wrote
If I had "loaded" gimp, firefox, krita and steam
modules then started using them simultaneously in ram would I then be able to load more modules?
Yeah sure, I have had like 150 modules loaded at the same time. I have firefox and gimp.
allthough I don't load them on every run since I rarely use gimp so why have it enabled.
Firefox has started to phone home so I use other browser. Only when that browser fails I load
up firefox.sb.
calligra-krita.sb comes out 162MB as a bundle and decompressed 613MB - no problem there
Steam isn't that big is it?
bit wrote
At what point would the ramdisk begin to not allocate space for
memory?
I think you are thinking of like windows ramdisk, it cannot be compared.
It's more like normal Arch linux than RAM disk
bit wrote
These are questions that hinder my adventures into AlphaOS because to me it sounds to be primarily for older computers with around 20 GB of disk space,
rather then newer computers with more disk space then it has RAM.
Yeah, if you think normal Arch linux is for old computers the same is true for alphaOS. I have internal hdd's for about 750GB, another external 1TB sometimes
hooked up. HDD diskspace does not claim space in RAM.
If you build modules for AlphaOS that is more than 4GB and are not using TORAM, Linux kernel will load them as needed just as in normal Arch
Squashfs loop mounted are treated as block devices.
bit wrote
Unless One were to partition the disk on the amount of ram. e.g 500 GB disk / 4 GB ram = 125 partitions
This is not how it works, no need to think like this.
As in when you run normal Arch how often do you feel the need to have all of the 500 GB in RAM at the same time.
If you don't have this need then alphaOS will work just like normal arch to you.
bit wrote
it is pointless to use it without modules, at that point I would rather use something close to arch. -wink-
I use it like that sometimes - when I think I will only use a program once.
I install it with pacman. use it in that session and it will be gone by next boot.
AlphaOS can also be run with persistence( I don't do it)
Everything you install with pacman would be going into the savefile.
It depends on what you want to achieve if it is useless for you.
I think you should just try it and ask questions from that