[sf-lug] how to run software automatically at start up; how to make a ram disk

[jim]

    Last Sunday we were playing with startup programming. 

    Here's a link to Artem Nosulchik's Linux Screw article 
on making a ram disk. 

http://www.linuxscrew.com/2010/03/24/fastest-way-to-create-ramdisk-in-ubuntulinux/ 

    It's nicely written--right to the point and clear as 
a bell. One of the purposes he explains is for using lots 
of small files, for example a suite of Perl scripts in a 
ram disk avoids the latency of hard disk access for each 
script or data file accessed. 
    Among the readers' congratulatory comments, someone 
mentions using the RAM disk to spare multiple writes to 
an SSD device (I'm assuming the software in use writes to 
the ram disk and at the end of a session or every so often, 
the user copies the contents of the ram disk to the SSD). 

    What's that to do with startup programming? Another 
reader asks how to set the system up so the ram disk is 
created at boot time. Yet another reader provides a link: 
http://www.ubuntuka.com/autostart-ubuntu-startup/ 

    Use System > Preferences > Startup Applications and 
click the add button to add whatever you'd like to run at 
start time: for example, your create a ram disk shell 
script. 
    I'll try that now and report.