So, I saw a post on a technical forum I read about a user who’s been having weird problems with his Mac OS X system. You see, in an effort to make his computer faster, he set up a RAMdisk, then told the system to use the RAMdisk as its virtual memory swap space.
Fifteen geek points to anyone who just read that and either winced or started laughing.
15 points! Hoo-rah!
Um…what can I redeem geek points for?
Why, street cred with your peers, of course!
Pftt…I already have too much street cred. Hell, I’m the geeky-est person most of them know.
15 points! Hoo-rah!
Um…what can I redeem geek points for?
Okay, so how many points if you’ve suggested this very course of action to someone (as a joke, of course!)?
And how many points if you can come up with a scenario where that might actually be beneficial, however twisted (‘cuz I can!)?
As a joke? I’d say at least 5 points?
Seriously? If you know why this is a bad idea and also know of those situations where it’s useful, at least 25. (I can think of a few situations where one might actually do this–when booting from a self-contained system on read-only media, for example, or when running some kind of disk repair application or other program where it is imperative that nothing be written to the hard drive.)
Precisely the scenarios I was thinking of. 🙂
I gladly accept my 30 geek points.
If you include hardware RAM disks (on an expansion card), it can also be used to get more memory into the system than the motherboard supports.
Okay, so how many points if you’ve suggested this very course of action to someone (as a joke, of course!)?
And how many points if you can come up with a scenario where that might actually be beneficial, however twisted (‘cuz I can!)?
And he’s only having weird problems? He’s doing pretty good.
There’s no reason it shouldn’t work; it just adds a couple layers of overhead into accomlishing exactly the same thing.
I’ve heard that most of the performance improvements from Win95 to Win98 (including roughly tripling the boot speed) came from making the virtual memory and disk cache systems aware of each other. In Win95, it was common for disk reads to be cached, leading to using more memory than the system physically had, leading to offloading that memory to the virtual memory system, which was then cached, etc. They apparently worked out the situations that would lead to infinite loops, but it was still pretty stupid.
And he’s only having weird problems? He’s doing pretty good.
…and yet there are some flavors of linux that suggest doing this.
I actually *think* knoppix will do it, because the allocation structures of certain kernels are better able to handle being out of swap than they are out of ram, since most will use all the ram with reckless abandon, but be more conservative about the “cost” of swapping.
IIRC, knoppix is meant to be run with no write-access to the disk — we use it to run all our internet kiosks in that very fashion.
Yes, which was why I (mistakenly) thought it did the “ramdisk-as-swap” thing.
I heard about this technique (but not on debian/knoppix) from a fairly active linux person a while ago, and was a little awed myself. But they seemed to know what they were talking about.
…and yet there are some flavors of linux that suggest doing this.
I actually *think* knoppix will do it, because the allocation structures of certain kernels are better able to handle being out of swap than they are out of ram, since most will use all the ram with reckless abandon, but be more conservative about the “cost” of swapping.
IIRC, knoppix is meant to be run with no write-access to the disk — we use it to run all our internet kiosks in that very fashion.
Heheh. Bravo. Where did you hear that?
Yeah, nevermind.
Heheh. Bravo. Where did you hear that?
Yeah, nevermind.
I did neither… although my desk now has a very nice head-shaped impression.
I’d say that qualifies you for the geek points…
I did neither… although my desk now has a very nice head-shaped impression.
Yes, which was why I (mistakenly) thought it did the “ramdisk-as-swap” thing.
I heard about this technique (but not on debian/knoppix) from a fairly active linux person a while ago, and was a little awed myself. But they seemed to know what they were talking about.
Ouch, lol.
It ran? *shudder*
Btw, Hi! I recently friended you. I believe a humorous post got me here, but then I saw some other interesting posts regarding life, etc, and thought I might like to read. My journal, on the other hand, is currently dullsville.
Welcome aboard!
Ouch, lol.
It ran? *shudder*
Btw, Hi! I recently friended you. I believe a humorous post got me here, but then I saw some other interesting posts regarding life, etc, and thought I might like to read. My journal, on the other hand, is currently dullsville.
Why, street cred with your peers, of course!
As a joke? I’d say at least 5 points?
Seriously? If you know why this is a bad idea and also know of those situations where it’s useful, at least 25. (I can think of a few situations where one might actually do this–when booting from a self-contained system on read-only media, for example, or when running some kind of disk repair application or other program where it is imperative that nothing be written to the hard drive.)
Welcome aboard!
I’d say that qualifies you for the geek points…
Precisely the scenarios I was thinking of. 🙂
I gladly accept my 30 geek points.
Pftt…I already have too much street cred. Hell, I’m the geeky-est person most of them know.
If you include hardware RAM disks (on an expansion card), it can also be used to get more memory into the system than the motherboard supports.
There’s no reason it shouldn’t work; it just adds a couple layers of overhead into accomlishing exactly the same thing.
I’ve heard that most of the performance improvements from Win95 to Win98 (including roughly tripling the boot speed) came from making the virtual memory and disk cache systems aware of each other. In Win95, it was common for disk reads to be cached, leading to using more memory than the system physically had, leading to offloading that memory to the virtual memory system, which was then cached, etc. They apparently worked out the situations that would lead to infinite loops, but it was still pretty stupid.