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More operating systems should run on RAM by default

13 hours ago, JefferyD90 said:

Another note, ROM is (typically) 100 times faster than RAM.  Its just ROM is more or less useless in day to day use.

??? except it's not, RAM is way faster than ROM, by far.

 

Also ROM isn't useless ... far from it!

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If security is a concern you can use encryption but never bitlocker.

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13 hours ago, divided_throwaway said:

 

I don't know, but hot-swappable HDDs/SSDs have become rare these days. The current USB standard does make up for it somewhat, but even that is slow compared to SATA, eSATA and M.2.

I'm wondering if drives will be protected if you still have the original files in ROM and you do not use the RAM by itself. Is flash storage also more immune to power surges as well?

usb 3.1 is faster than sata 3 and sata express is basically a joke at this point. M.2 is pretty much pcie, of course it's faster than usb 3.1 - but thunderbolt is a thing too.

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15 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

??? except it's not, RAM is way faster than ROM, by far.

what kind of ROM are you referring to? CD-ROM?

Please spend as much time writing your question, as you want me to spend responding to it.  Take some time, and explain your issue, please!

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Very few non-application specific OSes run from RAM because they're either usually too large to do so or simply to reduce the risk of any damage. HDDs and SSDs can protect themselves from unexpected shutdowns to an extent; RAM can't.

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3 minutes ago, JefferyD90 said:

what kind of ROM are you referring to? CD-ROM?

Any ROMs, including DVDs and CDs, RAM is faster.

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31 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

??? except it's not, RAM is way faster than ROM, by far.

 

Also ROM isn't useless ... far from it!

considering you can only write to rom once, it's more or less useless...

 

12 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Any ROMs, including DVDs and CDs, RAM is faster.

then you're not familiar with newer types if flash based rom used in many new machines. Typically rom on your computer, like what your bios is stored on, isn't fast because Its only 128kb of storage or something... It doesn't have enough storage to need to be fast.

 

but when you get into industrial grade equipment like robots, you'll see ROM in the 512MB capacities that rival the speed of l2 cache.

Please spend as much time writing your question, as you want me to spend responding to it.  Take some time, and explain your issue, please!

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1 hour ago, JefferyD90 said:

*snip*

lol what? Are you being serious? xD

 

I'll bite anyway ...

 

The topic is about OS being loaded into (and they are BTW). So the assumption here is that it's about PCs in general, not cutting edge technologies.

 

BTW, I would love to see an article (or any resource for that matter) about that ROM chip that has a few GB/s of transfer speeds!

 

But even if it exists, it's still slow compared to RAM with DDR4 being able to get above 60GB/s in reading speeds, and GDDR5 being able to go above 200GB/s ... So yeah, I can't see how ANY rom chip could be faster than ram!

 

 

EDIT: just in case, here are articles about bandwith speeds of RAM and GDDR5X;

 

http://wccftech.com/jedec-publishes-gddr5x-specification-double-bandwidth/

http://www.corsair.com/en-us/blog/2014/september/ddr3_vs_ddr4_synthetic

 

:D

 

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9 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What do you mean by "run on RAM"? The phrase itself makes no sense.

 

Modern OSes, such as Windows 7 and up (might even be Windows Vista) loads all the components needed to work into RAM at boot. You can try this if you want by turning your computer on, and then unplugging your hard drive. The computer will continue to work, but you will get an error when you try to access something that was stored on the drive you unplugged (so you can't launch a game for example, or start a video).

It makes some sense (although not the sense that he was trying to make). FreeNAS, for example, runs in RAM. It's stored on the boot USB/drive, and when the system is booted up it's loaded in its entirety into RAM and the boot drive is only accessed (written to) when a modification or log entry is made. 

 

Also, really? that's kind of neat I guess....you should preface that with a "don't try this at home, kids." since that probably has a high chance of causing (at least some minor) corruption. 

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15 hours ago, divided_throwaway said:

Speaking from experience, I support this statement, because I've experienced having a hard drive being damaged (admittedly from improperly shutting down the computer). However, there are a few other advantages I can think of:

  • RAM is faster than ROM, so one can have some performance gains using it, at least for more basic tasks.
  • It might be more secure, especially if you run it off a USB so that the data doesn't remain within the machine at all times unlike a hard drive.
  • One can save storage space on other drives, because operating systems and updates can take up drive space unnecessarily.
  • If one is running the operating system from a USB, it's easier to replace it than a SSD or HDD if they suspect any signs of the storage mediums reaching their end of life stages.
  • If one needs to access files quickly from a USB, or even change how the system runs in the same manner, they can do so easily through USB OTG with a compatible smartphone and/or tablet.

Fortunately, this can be easily done with the Linux kernel, but are there any reasons as to why this isn't widely used? Are there any disadvantages to this? Do you think my points can be refuted?

  • Operating systems do run on RAM. That's the point of RAM.
  • Having an OS on a portable drive that you can unplug doesn't necessarily make it more secure. In fact, it can be less secure if you don't actually update it to patch up exploits.
  • One can add storage. Storage is cheap.
  • Even if you run an OS from a USB, where do all my settings and user-added programs live? On another storage device. If your data is that important to you though, you should be making backup copies.
  • Why would I want to use a smartphone or tablet to change how my OS behaves?

The biggest question is what do you save?

 

The problem I'm seeing is that you cannot create a generic, on-size-fits-all OS build. You'll be bloating your OS build for days with drivers. The point of the OS being installed onto your PC is that you get a base system, then you build on top of it however you please. You could create something that has the stuff you need and freeze it, but then it'll only work on that computer. The systems that use Linux and load everything from storage into RAM are usually tailored for that system and are inflexible.

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18 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

I don't think I'm following your train of thought here... are you trying to suggest that the OS gets installed directly to RAM and only ever stored there?  What if you want to turn off the computer?

 

18 hours ago, xentropa said:

This is what im thinking too.

 

7 hours ago, Fluxus said:

I don't think he knew that RAM gets cleared when the PC turns off Or maybe he was playing pretend.

They're talking about an OS that loads entirely to and runs off of RAM after initial boot, with it actually booting off of a USB drive (or other storage medium), with saved files and programs being stored on HDD/SSDs.

It's not far from how most versions of Puppy Linux work, they boot off of the storage, and the entire OS is so small that it can, and does, copy to and run on RAM for the session. Puppy is also primarily a rescue operation OS, for when things go wrong in machines, although there are full client variants, such as MacPup. MacPup carries the ability to run directly off of RAM.

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Another thing is that OSes don't load everything they install in RAM because of a few things:

  • They have libraries that some programs use, but you're not using those programs at the moment or at all (but someone else does).
  • They have libraries that are there for backwards compatibility reasons
  • They have programs and services that are available, but you're not running them.

So maybe the real question is "why don't more OSes strip a bunch of crap off that we don't use?" Because someone else does and that someone is a big customer.

 

This is only possible with Linux and other open source OSes because you can build them from the ground up to use only the stuff you want and strip out the rest. This is a selling point of Gentoo Linux. The distro is meant to be compiled on your for your machine, so it's hard work getting there, but you'll have one of the leanest OSes your computer can run for your needs.

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You cannot install anything in ram.

You can only load and run things from it.

Like a Linux live medium from a usb stick loads itself in ram,

so that you could use it to explore, and test if you system hardware is compatible with the distribution, and you could also use if for other handy things like pre partitioning, or data recovering.

But other then that as a daily driver its not realy all that usable.

Unless you have enough memory available.

 

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...

 

Agree with nearly everyone.

 

...

 

Please don't run Windows off your RAM...

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RAM is volatile. so whatever you have on it will be lost in the event of a surge or power down... So unless you have your PC on 24/7 you're going to have to transfer your OS and file content to a different drive anyways. What's the point anyways? Your OS would be fast but that won't leave room for performance on any other programs to run efficiently...

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2 hours ago, Drak3 said:

 

 

They're talking about an OS that loads entirely to and runs off of RAM after initial boot, with it actually booting off of a USB drive (or other storage medium), with saved files and programs being stored on HDD/SSDs.

It's not far from how most versions of Puppy Linux work, they boot off of the storage, and the entire OS is so small that it can, and does, copy to and run on RAM for the session. Puppy is also primarily a rescue operation OS, for when things go wrong in machines, although there are full client variants, such as MacPup. MacPup carries the ability to run directly off of RAM.

Thats how windows works too.  All the core windows functions are loaded into the RAM after booting.  Windows doesnt load all of its libraries because that would take up too much space.  Linux doesnt come with as much crap, i mean libraries because most linux users are more advanced and can manage and install only the ones necessary.

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Just now, xentropa said:

Thats how windows works too.  All the core windows functions are loaded into the RAM after booting.  Windows doesnt load all of its libraries because that would take up too much space.  Linux doesnt come with as much crap, i mean libraries because most linux users are more advanced and can manage and install only the ones necessary.

I'm talking about every file of an OS being loaded into RAM, the initial boot device being able to be removed completely, and the system be able to fully function. They only require a non volatile storage medium to start up, once loaded however, said storage medium can be safely removed, and the system be used in a similar manner to a live boot USB or disk.

Windows, MacOS/OSX, Unix, and larger Linux distros load necessary components into RAM (that is based on the context of hardware, startup programs, drivers, and settings in the OS), but they can't store themselves entirely with RAM for the duration of the session (even when there is sufficient amounts of RAM). They require a non volatile storage medium at all times to operate, and they typically keep boot and crash logs.

Come Bloody Angel

Break off your chains

And look what I've found in the dirt.

 

Pale battered body

Seems she was struggling

Something is wrong with this world.

 

Fierce Bloody Angel

The blood is on your hands

Why did you come to this world?

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

Everybody turns to dust.

 

The blood is on your hands.

 

The blood is on your hands!

 

Pyo.

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