Can I use toram on an HD install?

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arjaybe
Posts: 549
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:51 pm

Can I use toram on an HD install?

#1 Post by arjaybe »

I've done some searching here and out there but can't find anything specific to this question. Lots on frugal installs and live USBs, but nothing for a standard HD install. Possible? You can see that I've already added toram to the kernel line. Also, how do I tell if it's running in RAM?

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System:
  Kernel: 6.14.6-1-liquorix-amd64 [6.14-8~mx23ahs] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 parameters: audit=0
    intel_pstate=disable amd_pstate=disable BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.14.6-1-liquorix-amd64
    root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash toram resume=UUID=<filter> resume_offset=29581312
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.5 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 7 dm: SDDM Distro: MX-23.6_KDE_x64 Libretto Jan
    12 2025 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Mini-pc System: LENOVO product: 10RRS0B500 v: ThinkCentre M920q
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 35 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 3136 v: SDK0J40697 WIN 3305181957057 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: LENOVO v: M1UKT77A date: 04/10/2024
CPU:
  Info: model: Intel Core i5-8500T bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Coffee Lake gen: core 8 level: v3
    note: check built: 2018 process: Intel 14nm family: 6 model-id: 0x9E (158) stepping: 0xA (10)
    microcode: 0xFA
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 6 smt: <unsupported> cache: L1: 384 KiB desc: d-6x32 KiB; i-6x32 KiB
    L2: 1.5 MiB desc: 6x256 KiB L3: 9 MiB desc: 1x9 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1700 high: 2101 min/max: 800/2101 boost: enabled scaling:
    driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: ondemand cores: 1: 2101 2: 2100 3: 2100 4: 900 5: 2100 6: 900
    bogomips: 25199
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling mitigation: Microcode
  Type: ghostwrite status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: Split huge pages
  Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled
  Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
  Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
  Type: mmio_stale_data mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
  Type: old_microcode status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed mitigation: IBRS
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: IBRS; IBPB: conditional; STIBP: disabled; RSB filling;
    PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
  Type: tsx_async_abort mitigation: TSX disabled
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2 [UHD Graphics 630] vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-9.5 process: Intel 14nm built: 2016-20 ports: active: HDMI-A-2 empty: DP-1, DP-2,
    HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-3 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:3e92 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: intel dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x317mm (20.00x12.48") s-diag: 599mm (23.57")
  Monitor-1: HDMI-A-2 mapped: HDMI2 model: Samsung SyncMaster serial: <filter> built: 2009
    res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94 gamma: 1.2 size: 520x320mm (20.47x12.6") diag: 611mm (24.1")
    ratio: 16:10 modes: max: 1920x1200 min: 640x480
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 24.2.8-1mx23ahs renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 630 (CFL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    alternate: snd_soc_avs,snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a348 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.14.6-1-liquorix-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM vendor: Lenovo driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A
    bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15bb class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-2: ASIX AX88179 Gigabit Ethernet type: USB driver: cdc_ncm bus-ID: 2-3.3:4
    chip-ID: 0b95:1790 class-ID: 0a00 serial: <filter>
  IF: eth1 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: ASUSTek ASUS USB-BT500 type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-6.3.1:6
    chip-ID: 0b05:190e class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.1
    sub-v: d922 hci-v: 5.1 rev: dfc6
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:6 sco-mtu: 255:12 link-policy: rswitch hold sniff park
    link-mode: peripheral accept service-classes: rendering, capturing, object transfer, audio,
    telephony
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 704.24 GiB used: 83.65 GiB (11.9%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLB256HAHQ-000L7 size: 238.47 GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter>
    rev: 1L2QEXD7 temp: 31.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 type: USB vendor: Samsung model: PSSD T7 Touch size: 465.76 GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: SSD serial: <filter> scheme: MBR
  SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure?
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 42.91 GiB size: 41.18 GiB (95.98%) used: 13.39 GiB (32.5%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 256 MiB size: 252 MiB (98.46%) used: 274 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 16 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p6
    maj-min: 259:6
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 41.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2553 libs: 1378 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb http://mirror.it.ubc.ca/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
    2: deb http://mirror.it.ubc.ca/mxlinux/mx/repo/ bookworm ahs
Info:
  Processes: 240 Uptime: 7m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.47 GiB used: 2.07 GiB (13.4%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI
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Nokkaelaein
Posts: 278
Joined: Fri Jul 17, 2020 10:32 am

Re: Can I use toram on an HD install?

#2 Post by Nokkaelaein »

Nope, doesn't work that way. When you boot a live system with "toram", it copies the monolithic squashfs image (containing all of the files of your snapshotted system) into RAM, and then uses it on the fly from there. Consider that, even if there was some other mechanism through which you could boot a system so that it copied the whole filesystem from HD into RAM before running it, this would use significantly more RAM than the live-booting toram functionality, as the files in your HD installed system aren't inside a monolithic compressed image file. Theoretically, if there was such a feature in a comparable sense, it would need to effectively first snapshot your system on each boot (creating the squashfs file) into RAM in order to fit into memory in a comparable size.
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mxer
Posts: 239
Joined: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:09 am

Re: Can I use toram on an HD install?

#3 Post by mxer »

A frugal install is similar to a live USB, but running from your disk, which will be faster than from a pendrive.

Frugal install will be the closest to loading to ram - check out Puppy Linux, you can make your own system, & 'squash' it up, to make a new version.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=11305
https://wikka.puppylinux.com/Remastering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpMk7frOEho
(FOSS, Linux, & BSD since 1999)
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User avatar
arjaybe
Posts: 549
Joined: Wed Jul 12, 2006 6:51 pm

Re: Can I use toram on an HD install?

#4 Post by arjaybe »

Thanks guys. Just checking. Puppy, eh? Gotta be 25 years since I tried Puppy.-)
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anticapitalista
Developer
Posts: 4288
Joined: Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:40 am

Re: Can I use toram on an HD install?

#5 Post by anticapitalista »

mxer wrote: Sat May 17, 2025 1:44 pm A frugal install is similar to a live USB, but running from your disk, which will be faster than from a pendrive.

Frugal install will be the closest to loading to ram - check out Puppy Linux, you can make your own system, & 'squash' it up, to make a new version.

https://forum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=11305
https://wikka.puppylinux.com/Remastering
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpMk7frOEho
No need to use Puppy linux for frugal install. You can run MX (and antiX) as a frugal install if you want.
anticapitalista
Reg. linux user #395339.

Philosophers have interpreted the world in many ways; the point is to change it.

antiX with runit - lean and mean.
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