[Soekris] Ram Disk based linux distro ?

[Jonathan Groll]

On Mon, Jan 29, 2007 at 09:32:46AM +0100, Bill Maas wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> why on earth go from OpenBSD "back" to Linux? OpenBSD is small, easy to
> install and use, highly combat proven, and it's "run from MFS"
> capabilities are practically off-the-shelf. And the MFS feature is very
> well documented (www.kernel-panic.it a.o.).
> 
> Linux doesn't seem to have any flashboot-like project running, at least
> not that I'm aware of. Which means you will probably have to build a
> custom installation, which in turn means ldd-ing your binaries (a

The linux alternative you may not know about is unionfs. I have
successfully built a PIII machine (Debian) that boots off CF and loads a
unionfs / between a tmpfs ramdisk and the read-only CF. You will need a
roll your own kernel with a funky initrd. In my case, it works well and
runs stock standard debian without ruining the CF card through excessive
use. One caveat: I have not developed a method to make changes
persistant other than to select another initrd in grub that allows you
to boot onto the CF read-write without the unionfs.

RAM limitations on a soekris may make a unionfs more challenging with
standard Debian, probably more so than with a flavour of *BSD.

This is why, quite frankly, I have not tried it with my soekris, this
runs openbsd with relevant mount points on MFS. Still, it may work.

Cheers,
Jonathan.