Re: What's best way to use Debian w/o my laptop? Flash + union?
On Wed, Nov 04, 2009 at 06:48:55PM +0000, unforgettableid wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I usually get around my city of Toronto, Canada by bicycle. I fall off my bike
> once a year or so. Therefore I don't carry breakable electronics like my
> laptop unless I know I will need them. But I sometimes need to use my Debian
> OS, my files, and some shell scripts I've written when I'm away from home. So
> I invested Cdn$100 in a 16GB SDHC card to carry in my pocket every day and boot
> Debian Linux from. I used it for a year, but the card's write speed is quite
> slow, so I've stopped using it. I now have four options, and wonder which is
> best.
>
> 1. Use my laptop's internal hard drive to boot Debian from, and leave my
> laptop running at home every day. But this costs the environment, and the
> electricity costs add up over time too.
>
> 2. Buy a faster flash card. If you do a Google search for [ cf iometer
> benchmarks ] you can find some. But this option might cost me Cdn$200 or more;
> option 4 seems like it'll be cheaper and almost as convenient.
>
> 3. Buy a 2.5" external HDD. But I'm told that when these fall, they're much
> more likely to break than flash.
>
> 4. At http://rtr.ca/run_from_ram/ there's a tool that easily lets you use some
> union filesystem on top of flash storage to speed things up. I can set it up
> to union my laptop's internal HDD on top, when it's available.
>
> 5. I'm sure there are other options which I haven't thought of. Feel free to
> suggest more options.
>
I have been experimenting with Debian Live on a USB stick and I don't
find the read/write speed to be a hinderance. Of course "slow" is in
the eye of the beholder. I'm using an 8 GB cheapo USB stick. I don't
know what the specs are, but I certainly didn't pay extra for a fast
one. I also haven't experimented with very large files. I typically
use LXDE or Fluxbox as my GUI, which may help the speed.
My understanding is that there's an optional feature with Debian Live
that lets you run everything in a ramdisk, and it syncs to the USB at
logout/shutdown. This is similar in concept to #4 above. Don't ask me
how to set it up though -- I'm still a novice with Debian Live.
-Rob
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