How About The Memory?

[amortvigil]

from the wiki: 256MB of DDR RAM and 512MB of on-board NAND memory

when i load a boot sys and an os on a sd card would it be possible to turn the 512mb NAND memory to extra system memory like SWAP or how windows calls it virtual memory or more acuratly readytoboast?

 

[dflemstr]

from the wiki: 256MB of DDR RAM and 512MB of on-board NAND memory

when i load a boot sys and an os on a sd card would it be possible to turn the 512mb NAND memory to extra system memory like SWAP or how windows calls it virtual memory or more acuratly readytoboast?

Why would you want to do this?

It IS possible, but you're much better off using SD cards for swap instead; however, you will probably simply not need more than 256 MB. What do you want to do?

Remember that this unit first of all runs Linux and secondly will have applications that are optimized for 256 MB. For day-to-day use, the memory limit simply won't be a problem.

EDIT: I should maybe elaborate a bit:

As you know, the internal NAND has a finite lifetime, so after a number of writes, it will "simply be gone". So, why would you want to stress this memory more than necessary? Also, since this probably isn't particularly fast memory we're talking about, you won't see any performance increases (And the same is true for Vista ReadyBoost btw; it barely changes anything), you'll only be able to run more idle applications simultaneously. It would be a lot better to use SD-cards (that you can replace when they wear out but still wouldn't give a speed increase) or an SSD if you happen to have one

 

[lulzfish]

It would be possible, but it would be absolutely unnecessary and quite stupid.

In much the same sense that it would be quite unnecessary and stupid to ever use ReadyBoost.

 

[WizardStan]

Consider why you really want to do this.
Unless the program has been very carefully written, exceeding physical memory and relying on swap space to give you some extra pseudo ram is a bad idea: your program will be swapping itself every few memory accesses, unless you are very careful about what memory gets used when and where. Even on a desktop, this can slow things way down, and SD cards aren't blazing fast to begin with. Don't write your programs to use more than physically available, it's just not a good idea.
The only time virtual memory is really beneficial is for multi-tasking: giving background programs a little extra memory. This works well because they only need to swap out every delta, and since they're background processes, that delta can afford to be a little longer usually. Of course, I don't expect most usages of the Pandora to include opening multiple programs at once, at least not high memory apps. Make sure you close down Firefox before starting anything else, and I suspect you'll find 256 to be more than enough ram.

 

[Pleng]

when i load a boot sys and an os on a sd card would it be possible to turn the 512mb NAND memory to extra system memory like SWAP or how windows calls it virtual memory or more acuratly readytoboast?

Readyboost is *not* the same thing as SWAP memory.

Readyboost puts some of the most frequently accessed (presumably small in size) files onto SD cards, USB sticks ets in order to speed up system performance. This is done as these kinds of storage devices have no real seek speed, meaning the files can be found almost instantly, as opposed to a hard disk which needs to 'find' the files before it can actually read them. The files need to be small, though, as flash memory is typically slower than a hard drive when it comes to actually reading the data once it has been found.

Back on topic, as others have pointed out, using the internal NAND as swap memory is a *bad* idea.

If you plan to do a lot of multi-tasking and really think you'll need swap, get a small fast SD card, and use that card solely for the purpose of swap. You may find that it wears out after a year or so and needs replacing, but given the price of SD cards that shouldn't be an issue.