Can antiX run soley in RAM?

wavrydr · posted: 2017-09-13 01:39

I was just wondering if for instance my hard drive bit the dust, could antiX run soley in RAM like puppy linux does? Just curious. I normally keep a backup of puppy linux just in case that ever happens, but if antiX can do the same, then I would rather have it cuz puppy tends to give me various issues with my machine.

skidoo · posted: 2017-09-13 02:15

Yes, in fact, by specifying toram in the live bootline, you can even remove the boot media.
(some puppy flavors do support toram, IIRC)

It has been absolutely stable throughout my extended usage.
Below I'm pasting a recent screencap repurposed from another forum topic.
That box is still up. I'll try to remember to grab a current screencap when I'm over there tomorrow.

wavrydr · posted: 2017-09-13 02:26

skidoo wrote: ↑
13 Sep 2017, 02:15
Yes, in fact, by specifying toram in the live bootline, you can even remove the boot media.
(some puppy flavors do support toram, IIRC)

It has been absolutely stable throughout my extended usage.
Below I'm pasting a recent screencap repurposed from another forum topic.
That box is still up. I'll try to remember to grab a current screencap when I'm over there tomorrow.

Awesomeness! Thank you so much for your speedy response! That's good to know! I'll be using antiX from now on then as my backup!

BitJam · posted: 2017-09-13 02:46

TL;DR: If you want a Linux live-usb then you have come to the right place!

Yes, the antiX live-usb and live-cd can run solely in RAM. If you have a live-usb then you can also use persistence and live-remaster to save your changes across reboots.   If possible, I suggest you use our live-usb-maker program to make a live-usb. That way you can be sure that all our special live-usb features are enabled.   Some people don't bother to install antiX and instead they just run it from the live-usb.   People from Knoppix (one of the earliest live distros) said antiX/MX were by far the best distros for live-usbs. That was a couple of years again and we've added a number of great features since then. For example, in antiX-17 you can make an encrypted live-usb which has all of normal live-usb features and is also encrypted to keep your information private.

If you have a usb-3.0 usb-stick and a usb-3.0 port then the live-usb really flies. Using usb-2 is not so bad but usb-1 can be painfully slow.   If you are running a recent version of antiX now then download an iso file, plug in a usb stick and run either live-usb-maker-gui or live-usb-maker. I use the tiny white Samsung Fit USB 3.0 for most of my testing.    Avoid the SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0. If you are ever in a bind and need a live-usb but don't have a machine to make one on then you can purchase a live-usb from
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://www.osdisc.com/products/antix"
linktext was:"OSDisc"
====================================
. They use our live-usb-maker program to create their MX and antiX live-usbs.

The live-usb features stemmed from my desire to have a fast-booting rescue-usb that I could easily customize.   I may be biased but I honestly believe that antiX gives you the very best live-usb experience of any distro, even Puppy. We have focused on fast booting and extremely easy customization. As Skidoo said, we do offer the"toram" feature but it is not needed if you are running a live-usb or a live-cd. They both work fine without"toram" even if you have no disk drive. The main purpose of"toram" is to load everything into memory at boot time to make the system faster if you are using a live-cd (which is slow) or a slow usb-1.x live-usb.

skidoo · posted: 2017-09-13 03:27

Using usb-2 is not so bad

^--- that's an understatement.

toram + dynamic root persistence + semi-automatic mode (perform saves on-demand/at-will, plus promped during shutdown)
post-boot, even boxes here with older (800MHz, 667MHz) DDR2 RAM
they FLY
compared to when they are I/O bound (e.g. 5400rpm drive + SATA1 controller)

wavrydr · posted: 2017-09-13 03:49

BitJam wrote: TL;DR: If you want a Linux live-usb then you have come to the right place!

Yes, the antiX live-usb and live-cd can run solely in RAM. If you have a live-usb then you can also use persistence and live-remaster to save your changes across reboots.   If possible, I suggest you use our live-usb-maker program to make a live-usb. That way you can be sure that all our special live-usb features are enabled.   Some people don't bother to install antiX and instead they just run it from the live-usb.   People from Knoppix (one of the earliest live distros) said antiX/MX were by far the best distros for live-usbs. That was a couple of years again and we've added a number of great features since then. For example, in antiX-17 you can make an encrypted live-usb which has all of normal live-usb features and is also encrypted to keep your information private.

If you have a usb-3.0 usb-stick and a usb-3.0 port then the live-usb really flies. Using usb-2 is not so bad but usb-1 can be painfully slow.   If you are running a recent version of antiX now then download an iso file, plug in a usb stick and run either live-usb-maker-gui or live-usb-maker. I use the tiny white Samsung Fit USB 3.0 for most of my testing.    Avoid the SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0. If you are ever in a bind and need a live-usb but don't have a machine to make one on then you can purchase a live-usb from
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://www.osdisc.com/products/antix"
linktext was:"OSDisc"
====================================
. They use our live-usb-maker program to create their MX and antiX live-usbs.

The live-usb features stemmed from my desire to have a fast-booting rescue-usb that I could easily customize.   I may be biased but I honestly believe that antiX gives you the very best live-usb experience of any distro, even Puppy. We have focused on fast booting and extremely easy customization. As Skidoo said, we do offer the"toram" feature but it is not needed if you are running a live-usb or a live-cd. They both work fine without"toram" even if you have no disk drive. The main purpose of"toram" is to load everything into memory at boot time to make the system faster if you are using a live-cd (which is slow) or a slow usb-1.x live-usb.

Sweet! Great info! Thanks for your input!

BitJam · posted: 2017-09-13 05:12

skidoo wrote:toram + dynamic root persistence + semi-automatic mode [...] FLY

Good to know. It makes sense that putting everything into RAM, even slower RAM, makes things fly. We have an option in build-iso to build the entire system in RAM (over 3 G for full, more for MX). That also flies. IIRC, with caching enabled, we can build the full system in about 5 minutes, even with my older, slower RAM. That means the .deb files have already been downloaded but they all have to be installed. We also cache the minimal system that debootstrap creates.

even boxes here with older (800MHz, 667MHz) DDR2 RAM

Hey, that is the memory in my main development system! After an upgrade a year ago, I now have four of these:

Code: Select all

2GiB DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 667 MHz (1.5 ns)

BTW: I like your idea of scraping the old posts to prepare for a move. If we move it would probably be to a phpBB system very similar to what MX uses.

cyrilus31 · posted: 2017-09-13 07:50

I do not use live-usb and antiX and MX are installed on a hard drive at home but I was wondering : I always heard that storing data on usb sticks is less reliable.

Was it true only for first usb sticks 15 years ago? Do you advise specific brands?

fatmac · posted: 2017-09-13 08:14

I think it wise to still consider pendrives as short term storage, & use external hard drives for longer term back up.

BitJam · posted: 2017-09-13 09:52

I use 32G Samsung Fit 3.0 USBs. They are small and white. They come with a 5-year warranty and cost about $12. 32G is the smallest capacity they come up. You can also get 64G and 128G. I use little dots of nail polish to tell them apart. I don't recommend the SanDisk Ultra Fit 3.0. I've had one fail on me, they all get very hot even when not in use and Linux has a hard time booting from them, perhaps because their high power consumption causes glitches.

The technology has radically transformed over the last 15 years. They are now much bigger, much faster, and much more reliable. Even back in the bad old days (let's say 8 years ago), many of the stories were conjecture and myths and downright wrong. Sort of like audiophiles and their $100 cables. I use a journaling file system on my live-usbs because the small amount of extra wear is more than made up for with the robustness of the file system in case power is lost or the stick is accidentally unplugged. We've had people on the forums report data loss on live-usbs but that has almost always been associated with an inferior file system, such as fat32.

I imagine a good hard drive or sdd is still more reliable than even a higher-end usb stick but that doesn't mean usb sticks are unreliable. I believe that many of the techniques used to make ssds reliable, such as error correction and wear leveling have filter down to the better usb-sticks. I wouldn't use usb-sticks as the backbone of a data archiving project but for day to day use, they are massively convenient and certainly reliable enough. For more information, you could contact the good folks at
========= SCRAPER REMOVED AN EMBEDDED LINK HERE ===========
url was:"https://www.osdisc.com/products/antix"
linktext was:"OSDisc"
====================================
. They've been selling Linux live-usbs for years. They have a lot of real-world experience since business is based on their live-usbs being reasonably reliable. I've gotten a lot of very valuable information from them.

cyrilus31 · posted: 2017-09-13 13:13

Thanks for the link. I will take a look when I have time.
I have a 256MB stick from 2002 still functionning pretty well even though I rarely use it now.

skidoo · posted: 2017-09-29 05:00

oops, reply intended for a different topic... but I can't delete this

masinick · posted: 2017-09-29 13:30

@cyrilus31 - ... a 256MB stick from 2002 ...

That is impressive in many ways:
1) that you still have the device
2) that the device still works
3) that it's usable for anything after all of these years.

Even with low usage, that seems to bring question to any claims of unreliable USB devices. More than likely, there were a lot of issues with early USB implementations, but it may have been due to many factors, including the build quality of early units, the reliability of the firmware and software that came with them, and the drivers that provided an interface to them.

These days, I'm sure that there could be issues occasionally, but I've done a lot of useful work over USB technology and it seldom gets in the way today.

fatmac · posted: 2017-09-29 14:34

I also have a 512mb (& 2x 1gb) pendrives in regular use for installing operating systems. :)

cyrilus31 · posted: 2017-09-29 14:39

Yes. And I can tell it's still working, I just transfered some photos.

Just to tell that the reason I was interested by antiX in the first place is to keep an old PC alive. Just as this old stick, I like keeping my device as long as it is possible. antiX is a powerful tool against planned obsolescence and I love it