New User question: DSL on USB Stick

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: New User question: DSL on USB Stick
started by: JNeuhoff

Posted by JNeuhoff on Mar. 30 2007,12:03

I have a a question about the usage of DSL on a USB stick or compact flash card:

As far as I now it is only possible to write to a compact flash or USB pen for a limited number of times. How does DSL handle this problem? For example, in Linux many services/daemons tend to write log files which are typically located in the /var/log directory.

Juergen Neuhoff

Posted by Juanito on Mar. 30 2007,13:35

As far as I know, all of the writing is done to ramdisk. This way you only write to your USB stick if you chose to, apart from the backup.tar.gz file.

I've been using DSL on USB stick for +/- 2 years without wearing one out yet

Posted by roberts on Mar. 30 2007,19:08

Quote

For example, in Linux many services/daemons tend to write log files which are typically located in the /var/log directory.

You will find DSL gets much of its small runtime and speed because many of the daemons are not started.

You will want to choose one of the DSL pendrive install scripts to provide a frugal type installation whereas you will be running from a read-only compressed system image with symlinks and/or unionfs overlays to write to a ramdisk.