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baslinux - Re: [BL] Loop BL3 uses a RAMDISK ?

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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Loop BL3 uses a RAMDISK ?
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 21:30:23 +0000 (UTC)

On Thu, 13 Jan 2005 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

sindi keesan wrote:

Have a look at boot.bat
--------------------------------------------------
loadlin zimage root=/dev/loop0 initrd=initfs.gz rw
--------------------------------------------------

Where does it say to use a ramdisk?

initrd=initfs.gz

initrd means to use a ramdisk?


In bl2 root=/dev/ram0
The ramdisk is mounted on /initrd ?

No. In BL2 the ramdisk is the root filesystem.
In the loop version of BL3, the ramdisk is not
the root filesystem.

Would it save a tiny bit of memory to delete
linuxrc and everything esle besides /DOS from
ramdisk?

Perhaps. But, it's hard to predict without trying
it. The relationship between the ramdisk and the
loopfile is tricky. The loopfile is on the DOS
partition which is mounted on the ramdisk which
is mounted on the loopfile which in on the DOS
partition which is mounted on the ramdisk which
is mounted on the loopfile... Are you dizzy yet?

My partner was wondering why this was called a loop. It loops.


However AFRAK the only important part of the ramdisk
(once the loopfile is up) is the DOS mountpoint. You
should be able to delete all the binaries, devices,
etc. But I'm had plenty of weird suprises in the past
with this loop-ramdisk thing.

I may try deleting all but DOS some day, next time I run BL3 on a laptop computer with 8MB RAM. But 600 bytes is not likely to make a really large difference. You said it was the existence of the ramdisk which uses up a few K.

linuxrc could be made about half the size if customized for a particular computer where baslin is on a known partition. But when you get to teh point where every byte counts (as on my 3MB RAM 386) linux does not run very well anyway.


Cheers,
Steven

____________________________

Sindi




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