Ubuntu 11.10_Ready Boost Equivalent?

Is it possible to use a flash drive as ram, like how MS windows Vista and 7 can with ready boost, but for Ubuntu 11.10?

the reason i ask is that my laptop only has 1/2a gig of ram (sad i know) and i just want to boost for a while till i can get a proper upgrade

if its possible, how can this task be accomplished?
Thanx in advance =)

FoilHat

 

ReadyBoost has nothing to do with RAM (even though it can bring a small speed boost to computers with slower hard drives).

ReadyBoost duplicates many of the smaller files already in the swapfile and copies them onto the USB drive. When any data from the swapfile is called for, Windows pulls it from the fastest source. As the access time on a flash drive is so fast for small, non-consecutive files, it allows the main swapfile (and the IDE/SATA channels) free to load the larger and consecutive files.

It rarely gives a noticeable boost to anything though, it's subtle, like a 0.5 - 7% speedup in loading a program as most of the heavy work is still done by the swapfile.

But a ReadyBoost for Linux? I'm really not sure, sorry.

 

Hello FoilHat, and Welcome to MG. :major

To use Linux you do not need memory clearing gimmicks like Ready Boost. Ubuntu should have installed a swap partition at installation. I would recommend you looking at the alternative Window Managers like XFCE that use less resources from the beginning. Configuration is easy and fully customizable the same as Gnome. I passed on 11.10 due to Unity- and migrated to Linux Mint Debian/ XFCE for my laptop and Desktop. I have now migrated laptop again to Crunchbang. LinuxMint and Crunchbang are both Debian based. Like almost all Linux Distros, you can try them all live before you install.

This page explains how to do the switch to XFCE in Ubuntu. If you hate it, you can switch back easily!