> > I recently replaced the HDD in an old notebook PC with a 512MB compact > > flash card and a 2.5" to CF adaptor. Not cheap: the adapter was $20 > > including postage from a crowd in Australia, and flash cards of a > > useful size are $40 or more. > > > > But it boots quickly and is eerily quiet: not a sound to be heard as it > > starts up. > > > > Stephen > > is it running a rw filesystem on the flash card? This is widely regarded > as a "bad thing" given the limited write life of flash.
Yes, and at my previous place of work we did exactly what 'voyage' does. We stripped down Debian and put all the 'stuff' on the flash disk. We didn't use a ramdisk for everything, but instead simply removed of prevented anything that needed to write to disc. This meant that we had minimal system logs etc., but it avoided the problem of wearing out the flash. > However if you look at voyage (http://www.voyage.hk ) they do a debian > system which runs in a read only disk with the rw portions being in > ramdisk. Its a debian based system and it is possible to simply apt-get > additional software (after making the flash disk rw, then after all > config etc is done you make it ro again) Again, exactly what we did. > voyage is designed as a router/access point, but there seems to be no > reason why you cannot get it to do other things. > > By the way you do not need X to view photos. You might like to look at > geexbox, which does photos and movies in a framebuffer. It is a 6MB > image, easily loaded to flash or cd or hard drive. It runs entirely in > ramdisk after bootup. A few changes to the base system start up scripts > and it will do what you want. You mentioned it earlier, and it sounds like it might be the most appropriate solution. What I really want is the illusion of choice... A
