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Loading a large Linux distribution such as Ubuntu into mapped partitions on RAM such as DDR4 Is there any way of booting from SSD/USB/NVMe/eMMC to have a Linux OS, such as Ubuntu, plus applications, services and containers load entirely into partitions created in RAMs such as DDR3 or DDR4. This should ideally allow for use of other partitions, on say SSD or HDD for file storage regardless of which OS loads, probably FAT32 or exFAT for cross-OS support.

This is because even large Linux distributions use a few tens of gigabytes, and many users want to use the same hardware for lots of distributions, e.g. home entertainment, software development, gaming, media production, office productivity, where users could select their environment from say a boot-loader or different USB keys, and run that environment entirely in RAM where user files reside on SSD's or HDD's, and there is a shut-down process, manual procedure or automated syncing of files in RAM archiving back to the original non-volatile drive.

For example, you could have a customised Steam-based OS for gaming, switching to a media-streaming OS for relaxation or parties, switching to a office productivity OS and then an Education OS, from either USB keys or SSD partitions or similar, sharing user folders among different volatile-to-non-volatile loads of differing OS's. A large cheap RAID array or single SSD could function to store files such as games, files, media, but utilising the RAM for core OS, application, library and code and services etc.

Load times would increase but the OS, applications, services and databases, containers, plus gaming and media production speeds could be improved utilising lots of RAM and small cheap loaders/archives or SSD rather than having to fork out on the cost of a large SSD or NVMe drive to accommodate those needs, which would load faster but be less responses than loading the OS and apps into RAM.

The ability to run entire drive in RAM is also important in server scenarios especially databases which are not entirely suited to SSD's and more suited to RAM in terms of seek times, read and write times, bandwidth and numbers of rewrites and failures. For example, running a Linux Server OS including a Docker container of databases, server, code, libraries etc on one or more RAM partitions, utilising other drives for user files. Also RAM swap file areas would be useful in backup or media production scenarios also.

Comments welcome.

SouthWalesMale
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  • Where did you come up with this idea? – heynnema Nov 05 '20 at 15:22
  • From 3rd party Windows solutions which can create mapped partitions on RAM, also the Hyperdrive from years ago which used a PCI slot and DDR(2?) memory as a recognizable internal hard drive. The idea could be applied to Linux kernels, especially in movements from HDD to SDD to PCIe, go one step further to reduce complexity and potentially increase security of running certain functions or the entire OS from RAM. 6Gb/s on SATA3 for user files such as media, 25Gb/s from PC4-25600 for OS/apps/containers etc. Power supplies in most modern grids are consistent enough in nearly all scenarios. – SouthWalesMale Nov 06 '20 at 14:18
  • This is not a new concept. You are basically talking about a RAM drive. RAM drives are essentially obsoleted for typical users since SSDs are now cheap and fast. RAM is temporary by nature. It can't store data when the power is off. SSDs are essentially the same technology as RAM except SSDs can keep data even when the power is off (hence, the "Solid State"). – Nmath Nov 17 '20 at 06:00

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