I am planning on building a new project in the near future.
One of the features I am attempting to add is a compact flash drive connected through IDE which would hold linux system processes normally run in ram.
In effect I would like to have the system shut itself down when logged out and have a minimal load time when booting back up. With everything normally loaded into ram at bootup, stored in the flash drive instead, the only load time would in effect be the bios boot.
I think Linux would be the best way to go about achieving my objectives, especially since there are many prominent embedded linux projects. What I want to do is have everything that would be normally loaded up to the point when you get to the X, KDE, GNome (Whatever) logon screen, stored solid on a flash drive interfaced through IDE. After you login, it would load stuff from the harddrive, to ram. Is there any similar project out there allready or anything that could help me? Any help is appreciated, thank you.
The objective of the system would be a demonstration that network systems in schools and businesses who sit at the logon screen 75% of the time, could be shutdown and the minimal network, system and logon processes stored in rom, drastically reducing power consumption.