Fossa64 splash: difference between ram only & copy .sfs files to ram?

[houndstooth]

Does the prior just not load our saves?

[user1234]

Nice question @houndstooth! By the way, I have been also thinking about the same for a lot of time.

I vote that you're getting it right.

[bigpup]

Yes.

The boot option RAM only causes the save to not be loaded.
So the save does not get used.
Puppy will boot as it did the very first time.

Because the Puppy OS files are read only and never change.
Changes only go into the read/write save.
Any problems are most likely something broken in the save.

This option is useful if you think there could be something wrong with the save.

Will let you boot into a working Puppy OS and be able to work on the bad save.

[bigpup]

The option copy sfs files to RAM is an option, but it does nothing different from the normal way to boot Puppy.

If offered as a boot menu entry. It does allow to still boot as it normally does, if something is wrong with the normal boot menu entry.

Normal boot menu entry copies the Puppy sfs files into RAM.

The boot option nocopy is different.

It loads only the needed stuff to run the Puppy OS into RAM.
All the other stuff in the SFS files is just there to access, but not loaded into RAM.
It is the way to boot using the very lowest amount of RAM.

All the programs in the Puppy SFS files have to first be read into RAM to run them.
Slower to start a program.

Note:
These copy and nocopy options go back to early days of Puppy development.
Well if there is an option to nocopy.
I guess there should be an option to copy even if it does that anyway in a normal boot.

[houndstooth]

It is intended: copy is a remedy boot option for the default, but it will use a save unlike ram only?

The need for copy then is the one that is challenging.

If a menu option ever worked wouldn't it always

[Feek]

It is intended: copy is a remedy boot option for the default, but it will use a save unlike ram only?

I hope I understand your question correctly..

If you have a save created and it is in the correct location, it will be loaded/mounted automatically (at boot time) by default.
And that regardless of whether you copied the .sfs files to ram or not.

You can have multiple saves created for different purposes. During boot, Puppy will ask which save to load.
Of course, it can be arranged that no saves are loaded, which will be a clean start.

[houndstooth]

I hope I understand your question correctly..

Hello Feek,

The question is merely:

If both default & copy .sfs files to ram will load saves & put system .sfs in ram, what is the difference between them?

Bigpup asserts the second is just a backup menu option, but I do not understand why confusion is not a greater risk.

I could probably see the discrepancy in the splash code but haven't looked yet.

[bigpup]

Saves are not loaded into ram.
Just layered into the filesystem.

At the time these different options were being developed.

Copy was the option first made.

There was a time when this may have been needed to tell Puppy to boot and copy the sfs files into RAM.
Back when RAM in computers was very, very low amounts, a normal boot may or may not have loaded sfs's into memory.
Boot processes at the time, made this choice, based on how much ram was found in the computer.
If ram was not a set amount or more, Puppy would load into RAM, only what was needed to get to a desktop, and most needed core programs.

There was a time when computers had 256MB of memory or even less.
Puppy 2 main SFS was 112MB
So if all of it loaded into 256MB RAM, not much free ram to use.

Even if there was enough RAM.
then they decided to make a nocopy option, so the very lowest amount of memory, could be used, to get to a working desktop.

Puppy has always provided choices, so give people some.

You have to understand, the boot processes have changed a lot since these options, first where produced.
Even what happens with a normal boot entry, with non of these options in it, has changed.
Puppy now boots with a lot of automatic choices, based on what is found, as it boots.

As it now is with most computers.
Copy option really is not needed, but why remove it?

With computers having 1GB+ of RAM. Puppy SFS files are always going to automatically get loaded into RAM.

There are still people posting on the forum, that have Puppy on computers with 256MB of RAM or less.
They need this copy option.

[rockedge]

@bigpup I totally agree NOT to remove any boot options. It does happen that an option not used much anymore suddenly can become important again.

[williams2]

It is not difficult.

pfix=ram means do not use a save file
@bigpup first post is correct.
Simple not at all difficult.

If you have one pup.sfs file that contains all the Puppy OS files in a squashfs file system,
pfix=nocopy will mount the pup.sfs file where it is.
It may be on a cd/dvd or on a usb flash drive or on an internal hard drive.
nocopy means to mount it where ever it is.

pfix=copy copies the pup.sfs file to the ram file system then mounts it.
So if pup.sfs was on a cd, you can remove the cd and use the cd/dvd drive.

Puppy does this automatically anyway.

It is not complicated.
Mount the pup.sfs file where ever it is.
or copy the pup.sfs file to ram then mount it.

Puppy was like Knoppix only with persistence (the save file)
and you could use the cd drive which Knoppix could not do.