[pocket-linux] System Architecture Guide

[David Horton]

[snip]

>  Don't know if all of you are familiar with the Knoppix live cd-distro
> but it uses cloop-utils.  This makes it possible to access files from a 
> compressed filesystem on the fly  
> (http://build.lnx-bbc.org/packages/kernel/cloop.html).  This way you're 
> not limited to the 650 MB of the classic CD-RW.  If I'm not mistaken, 
> knoppix has about 1GB worth of files on the cd.  They also use ramdisk.  
> Talking about ramdisk, the question is: are you gonna put a limit on 
> it.  I mean, do you want a system that everybody can use, even people 
> with a 486 with only 4 MB of ram ?  You need to set minimum and maximum 
> limits somewhere...  Or maybe you can have the OS query this through 
> scripting so it can adapt itself to the pc it's working on.  (Ex: If ram 
> < 64MB then no X-system...).  Maybe the cloop-utils can be used on 
> ramdisk too to make more space?  Don't know the details about that...
> 
> Just a few thoughts I had, I'm no expert at all so forgive me if I'm on 
> the wrong track...  (I'm no expert in the English language either, but 
> you've probably allready noticed that :-)   )
> 
> Greets,
> 
> Tom Van den Brandt
> 

I haven't really thought too much about system limitations.  I'm just 
planning to start small and work up (similar to what the pocket linux 
guide does.)  I think it will take some time to figure out how to build 
a full blown X-window system so the system horsepower issue may not come 
up for a while.  Personally, I still own a couple of P-133's with 64M 
RAM so I would hope to be able to run on that platform at least as a 
console-based system.


Dave