Unfortunately, I am currently running Knoppix (with toram extension) on a 512MB RAM machine and my CD is being frequently accessed. It is far from my expectations for responsiveness but it ran just alright I suppose.

Anyone tried Knoppix (toram) on a 1GB (or more) RAM machine? If it is a huge improvement, I wouldn't mind adding more RAM.

Er... I will quote this from the February edition CHIP Magazine...

Knoppix is a Live Linux CD based on the Debian GNU/Linu model and has been getting a lot of positive response from Linux communities since day one due to its ease of use. This is not surprising as the Linux operating system can be run instantly without havinf it installed on the HDD. By popping the CD into the CD/DVD drive, you can have the BIOS to boot the CD first. The program is activated according to the PC's hardware configuration.

If You feel that this method of running the program from the cd is a little slow for you, Knoppix provides you two alternatives to run the OS faster. The first method is to copy the entire contents of the CD to the PC's memory by using the additional "Knoppix Toram" parameter after the Boot Promt. The second method is to access the Knoppix (ISO) image file in the local hard disk by using the additinal "Knoppix bootfrom=file ISO according to location" parameter. For instance, if the ISO file is on the hdb3 partition, then the command would look like this:

Knoppix bootfrom=/dev/hdb3/K*.iso

The first method proves to be faster because accessing the memory is much faster than accessing the hard disk. However, your PC needs to be equipped with a minimum of 1 GB of memory for this.

Lol.. dunno if this is what u asked. Oh btw I am using knoppix with 512 ram too... no problem.. quite smooth...

i'm using knoppix on a 512 machine and it's quite satisfactory...