Create Ramdisk, Ubuntu Kubuntu Ramdrive, Change default Ramdisk size

The following script will create a usable ram disk in /home/yourhome/autotemp/ directory.  

It is a very basic script and could be improved by taking parameters for the directory (/home/$USER/autotemp) and for the ram disk number (/dev/ram0).  It has drive zero (0) hard coded but could use any of the default Linux ram devices /dev/ram0 - /dev/ram15 (16 disks at once with available RAM).  See instructions in the script for changing the default ram drive size from 64MB to something else.

Thanks to Vane and Khattam for their prior work.

Save content between dashes (----)  to a temp directory as start_ramdisk_0

to copy to system try

sudo cp start_ramdisk_0 /usr/local/.

to make runable try 

chmod +x /usr/local/start_ramdisk_0

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#!/bin/bash 

# Ramdisk maker

# warren jones

# www.wjones.com

# 13 December 2010

#

# based upon scripts from 

# http://www.vanemery.com/Linux/Ramdisk/ramdisk.html

# http://www.khattam.info

#

#

# RAMDISK instructions for UBUNTU, KUBUNTU  

#

# save this file to /usr/local/bin  run as root

# 

# Default drive size for ubuntu/kubuntu is 64MB

# To increase the RAMDISK size

# edit /etc/default/grub and append ramdisk_size=SIZE_IN_BYTES to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT within quotes

# run gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

# For 256Mb RAM Disk, run

# GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash ramdisk_size=256000"

# After saving update grub

# sudo update-grub

# restart  computer for drive size changes to take effect

#    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify

#    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by

#    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or

#    (at your option) any later version.

 

#    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,

#    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of

#    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the

#    GNU General Public License for more details.

 

 

USER_NAME=$USER

TMP_PROFILE_DIR=/home/$USER/autotemp/disk0

 

RAM_DEVICE=/dev/ram0

 

umount $RAM_DEVICE

mkdir -p $TMP_PROFILE_DIR

umount $TMP_PROFILE_DIR

mke2fs -m 0 $RAM_DEVICE

mount -t ext2 $RAM_DEVICE $TMP_PROFILE_DIR

chown $USERNAME:root $TMP_PROFILE_DIR

chmod 0770 $TMP_PROFILE_DIR

Question: Best tool to record desktop video on Kubuntu/Ubuntu/KDE/Linux?

I looked at two Options for recording a video stream of desktop actions:

gtk recordmydesktop

xvidcap http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net/

Tried both, only xvidcap worked as needed. Seems to handle full HD capture with minimal performance impact.

 

video capture feature will be integrated in the new Auto Mini desktops

Convert OmniOutliner Outlines to Linux and a good Linux Outlining Tool

Question: How to convert OmniOutliner Outlines to Linux, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, KDE?

These are rough instructions but they work:

1. Convert the OmniOutliner file to .opml (File Export in Omnioutliner). Note you will lose all font/column formatting in this basic conversion.

2. On linux download two files:

Treepad Lite

http://www.treepad.com/linux/treepadlite/

OPML to Treepad Converter

http://www.treepad.com/download/opml2tp.zip

3. Expand all, create a new folder, i.e. TreePadLite and copy all to the new folder.

4. Place your test .opml file in the folder

5. Run

perl opml2tp.pl myfilename.opml > myfilename.hjt

6. You can now run the Treepad program and open the .hjt file

7. To wrap up the install, you should move the data (.hjt) file to where you keep your documents in your /home directory. Also you can place the app folder in a safe place ... if you are in the TreePadLite folder, type

sudo mv ../TreePadLite /opt/TreePadLite

The conversion feature will be integrated in the new Auto Mini desktops in 2011.

Warren Jones | Managing Research Director | wJones
————————————————————————
warren@wjones.com | 415-412-4131 | www.wjones.com

Podcast / Publications / Linkedin / Facebook

How to Split and Merge PDF Files on Kubuntu, KDE, Gnome, Linux

Question: How to combine PDF Files on KDE Gnome Kubuntu

Found utility to do the job ... pdfsam ... simple user interface, but works great. Installed it in kubuntu with no issue

http://www.pdfsam.org/

Warren Jones | Managing Research Director | wJones
————————————————————————
warren@wjones.com | 415-412-4131 | www.wjones.com

Podcast / Publications / Linkedin / Facebook

Beyond Stored-Program Technology

Stored-purpose computers will be a step beyond stored-program.  But what does beyond stored-program mean?  Does it mean that the new generation of computers won't leverage or include the key technologies of stored-program architecture (i.e. processor, IO handling, memory, OS Kernel, Program Loading)?  The answer is no. While in the future, there may be an opportunity to redesign electronics to more directly support the processing needs of the General intelligence algorithm, but that won't occur for another decade.  But even then, there will still be many applications for simple stored programs.

An analogy:

An automobile is clearly beyond walking, yet it leverages basic concepts of walking that include: 1) path/road, 2) object in motion propelled by friction when in contact with path/road

An airplane is clearly beyond an automobile, yet it leverages core concepts of the automobile that include:  1) path/road, 2) wheels, 3) engine

An automobile is not just improved walking if it uses a road and friction.  Similarly, an airplane is not just an improved car if it uses wheels and an engine.  In both cases the technology was able to make entirely new routes for pursuing the goal of travel. 

The goal was to design a better computer, one that could anticipate needs and serve people better.  So we developed a way to program understanding … of purpose and goals.   Then to help a computer better anticipate what goals would lead a person to do, we developed logic for goal pursuit, goal route traversal and the ability to plan ahead.  Then to make that logic more general, so that a computer could support a person or company, we extended it to understand context and developed protocols for handling changes.  

Finally, so that the computer could actually help, when it knew help was needed, we taught it how to turn on the lights.

Examples

9:30 am ...  ten people enter a conference room … the agenda and documents related to the meeting are on the System … Can a computer know to copy the presentation to the HD display in advance?  Can it know to dim and restore the room lights, turn on and off the projector at the start and end of presentation? 

11:00 am … two people enter a hospital medical imaging suite … Need a computer be asked to identify a doctor and patient ... check the doctor's file and identify the scheduled procedure … check the patient's file and retrieve the parameters … display sensible options on the image system menu … display the scan results on the suite's HD display immediately after the procedure … store the results of the scan to the patient's record?

Man's Intelligence, Unique?

Man was considered intelligent because he alone used tools to build complex systems, like dams, yet a beaver was considered not intelligent, even though it was from him that man learned to build a dam.   Man was considered intelligent because he could build an apparatus for breathing underwater, yet a salamander's ability to have offspring that breath above or under water ... was not.  

To make such determinations seem less arbitrary, man's use of mechanical tools and his ability to create machine technology was defined as a key differentiator between him and other "non-intelligent" entities.  This was so even when animals were found able to achieve similar goals with more efficiency using non-mechanical technologies.  Even as man would sometimes seem the least intelligent creature in nature, standing alone in a forest vacated by animals minutes before it was ravaged by fire and smoke or swimming aimlessly in the Indian Ocean minutes before a Tsunami, wondering why all the fish have gone away, he has still held to a belief that dolphin sonar, bat radar, bird magneto-sensors, eel electro sensors, and fish hydro sensors are all "non-technologies" of "intelligence-free" "auto-responsive" "instinct-driven" animals while his ability to yield a knife proves his exclusive unique intelligence.  Man has held steadfastly to this belief even as it became increasingly evident that bio and mechanical technologies may be created12 and that advances in biotechnology may ultimately as important than mechanical technology in the long term success of our species. 

Subjective definitions continued even after the supposed ultimate proof of homo sapiens superiority, DNA complexity, was found non-existent.  The decoding of human and other animal genomes showed not that human DNA possessed more information or was more complex than other life forms on earth, but that the salamander's DNA held an order of magnitude more information, and that human DNA barely exceeded the complexity of a rice grass.