linux ramdisk running windows

supasoaker

supasoaker

supasoaker

Associate
Joined
14 Oct 2008
Posts
107
how easy would it be to create a ramdisk in linux then load windows via that?

i know it can be done with vmware but issues such as the lack of support for graphics hardware acceleration makes me want to find a different route.......

the idea would be to run linux in the background and run and load a windows installation off a ramdisk partition in linux (formatted in NTFS if needed) - on first boot linux would load and copy the windows files to the ramdisk then load windows...............as long as linux is running i can restart windows as many times as I want as it is running from the ramdrive..............

comments on cost effectiveness to be avoided if possible, this is purely a technical question.............

any help much appreciated.............
 
what are you trying to achieve? If you are after speed the id guess that the benefits of running in a ramdisk would be negated by the fact that its not running natively.

EDIT - On second reading I've got a bit confused. You say that "as long as linux is running i can restart windows as many times as I want as it is running from the ramdrive" which suggests to me that you want to have linux loaded into memory which means that windows would need to be virtualised. But then you say that you don't want to use vmware because of the "lack of support for graphics hardware acceleration".

You can't have it both ways. Either Linux is sitting in memory and providing the ramdrive and Windows is vitrualised OR Linux is unloaded and Windows is running natively.

Windows has superfetch and some very clever memory management which probably means that your most-used applications are sitting in memory anyway - which makes the exercise largely pointless.
 
Last edited:
hi - thanks for the reply.

yes best of both worlds is the aim if ever possible.................

my assumption was that it would be easier to do and provide a stable platform if I used linux as my primary OS but would like the full functions of windows which would be dead fast :(

there are ways to do it for linux and windows too but the windows ones have some issues..........but still usable.........

any suggestions as to how i would be able to accomplish this using windows natively or should i post on another forum (since this is linux and openware)..............Diskless Angel is one app that works but i am looking around for other options............
 
What exactly are you trying to do?
If you're trying to create a custom, static Windows installation along the lines of BartPE then that would probably be your best place to start. With a bit of jiggery-pokery I think it can be persuaded to load into RAM.

If you want to run Windows as a guest OS under Linux you won't get much better than VMware.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom