Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

My goal is to run a ram session with no pupsave file of a remastered distro, but I want to keep the remaster light if it all goes to ram.

I'm imagining it as a standard custom configuration where regular session changes aren't so important to save, but the few browsers, utilities, and desktop look I want are there.

Not sure what you are asking. And really not sure of what you mean as "light". If you are not shipping it across the internet light has no meaning.

In the remaster you mention, often times...maybe most times for PUPs, the browser and the workloads surrounding their use are one of the biggest if not the biggest sizes in your remaster's operation.

@mikewalsh has presented methods where the browsers are NOT a part of the remaster if you use his packages. Any packages YOU install will become a part of your system when you remaster.

Should work for your personal needs and will contain whatever you envision your needs to be.

So, boot, add stuff you need, remaster instead of re-saving and you should be fine. REmember, you are remastering to build your personal system.

Hope this helps.

The more you install, the bigger the Puppy gets and the more RAM is used.
Instead of installing programs into a remaster I suggest only to install what you really need to have into a remaster.
For anything else use benefits of portable program archives like SFS (.sfs) etc.

It's easy to build your own .sfs modules.
Also it's easy to run programs from .sfs modules just like they would have been installed.

Build your own .sfs modules: PaDS
Create RunScripts to run programs from .sfs modules by a menu entry or desktop icon: SFS PLUS 2

Ditto what clarity wrote. But as your objective is to have "everything" loaded into RAM, portables can be placed in /opt (which will occupy RAM) rather than on /mnt/home (which isn't).

Of the Web-browsers which still can provide a full graphic web experience, seamonkey uses the least RAM to open. Web-pages will require the same amount of RAM regardless of choice of web-browser, unless you choose a text-only web-browser. Suggest Mike Walsh's Seamonkey portable. viewtopic.php?p=2206#p2206

SeaMonkey portable sounds promising.

Perhaps this is more intuitive with non-Puppy thinking: What I'm really trying to do is have the os, settings and desktop in ram on boot, but no browsers (for example) until I run them.

If Puppy loads EVERYTHING you install into ram, it's really gonna bog down a limited system.

mikeslr wrote: ↑Thu Oct 15, 2020 11:44 am Ditto what clarity wrote. But as your objective is to have "everything" loaded into RAM, portables can be placed in /opt (which will occupy RAM) rather than on /mnt/home (which isn't).

Of the Web-browsers which still can provide a full graphic web experience, seamonkey uses the least RAM to open. Web-pages will require the same amount of RAM regardless of choice of web-browser, unless you choose a text-only web-browser. Suggest Mike Walsh's Seamonkey portable. viewtopic.php?p=2206#p2206

so, sounds like the sfs/portable is the best option for your browser needs. plenty of good advice above.

But I wanted to pop in and say, in reference to the desktop stuff, don't forget there are many files you likely have changed that reside within /root. so you'll need to find them and add them manually during the remaster.

In that it is also possible that the adrv.sfs, if present in the pup, could overwrite some of those desktop defaults. possible.

Just a heads up


..aside.. I have just done a remaster that I ended up merging the adrv.sfs and the main puppy file to simplify this, it also became smaller than their sum as there seems to have been duplicates created in the new puppy.sfs. I used PaDs from @taersh (Thanks for those tools!!)
It was experimental, so not recommended, but is all good except for a small discrepancy in the menu items that I have yet to look into...

@puddlemoon I'm not sophisticated enough to understand all the ramifications and hack techinques, but I appreciate the headsup.

I usually learn one thing at a time in chunks. Some of that of course is from direct instructions. Other comes from trial and error.

path of least resistance... some taoism involved to be sure

Push this for more yang, or go the path of least resistance in yin?

yes, some taoism to be sure. for me too.... I've had a genuinely spiritual experience with puppy. still going...

So the short answer to the original question is, yes, mostly. all the apps you install will be in the new sfs and thus loaded to ram. but the changes you make in /root will not be. unless you add them when the dialog pops up.

For example, the xrandr concept you mentioned would work with a script in /root/startup but you'd need to add it manually to /tmp/root/startup when prompted during the remaster.

many of the desktop changes you'd make on the fly are kept in /root but it really depends on what exactly you would like to keep in the new pup. I do a fair bit of theming to my installs so I've done a lot of hunting for config files.... you may need to do the same...

puddlemoon wrote: ↑Fri Oct 16, 2020 6:15 am For example, the xrandr concept you mentioned would work with a script in /root/startup but you'd need to add it manually to /tmp/root/startup when prompted during the remaster.

Yes, there might even be more than one way to do it, it's just not obvious before comprehension.

Would you try to insert a video adjustment command in a bootloader?

Startup seems odd to rely upon since it's not saved in a live session, even though a remaster could tweak it.

As an alternative to a Remaster, you could use PaDS to create a(nother) alphabet SFS. See my post here, viewtopic.php?p=7761#p7761

We've been discussing the how & limitations of what gets copied into RAM here, viewtopic.php?p=7311#p7311

@JASpup :-

With regard to SeaMonkey-portable, do be aware that the way these have been built they can be run from a separate flash-drive, if needed. I've run them like this myself, and they work fine.....no issues that I'm aware of, since the browser 'profile' is part of the 'portable-browser' installation.

Give it a try. Either that, or you can store the browser itself elsewhere on the hardware in question, then mount it and launch it as required. They will literally run from anywhere.

If your hardware is "RAM-challenged", you can alleviate this to a certain extent by making sure you have a decent-sized swap partition. You can even create one of these on a flash-drive.....Puppy will still "see"it, and make use of it if needs be. Personally, I have swap partitions on all my internal drives; a total of something like 25 GB currently.

(Mind you, 16 GB of RAM does mean it's not something that gets used very often on my machine....)

Not really addressing your original query, it's true, but we're just trying to help you be aware of the many 'options' available to you.


Mike.

@mikewalsh I'm typing now from the last 32bit Opera running Tahrpup on a USB. SeaMonkey would be a welcome addition to the repertoire.

All portable browsers (apps in general) that don't have to be run from the installation are a great convenience - pick and choose. Opera is installed from a .deb but it's easy and generally more reliable than a gzipped tarball.

This is another old but less challenged machine (2011 vs 1998).

The old timer is down again, kernel crash cause by hardware modification (switching out the HD). When I install the original HD, it still won't boot anything, but this has happened before and some tweak or a good rest makes it work again.

A swapfile on a USB could be worthwhile. HD not so much.

My basic goal with browsers is availability of all 32bit early HTTPS-running. Even though these ram sessions are relatively private, I try to keep browsing compartmentalized.