RAM Disks on Mac OS 10.5

Question

I had a hard time finnding info on RAM disks in OS X so I am posting it here for anyone it might help.
Mac OS X has the ability to create a RAM disk built in just like OS 9. Unfortunately, Apple decided to remove this feature from the GUI. Here is how to do it via the command line:
diskutil erasevolume HFS+ "RAM disk" `hdiutil attach -nomount ram://4629672`
This will create a 2.2GB RAM disk, which is the maximum size. If you want to create more than one replace the "RAM disk" with "RAM disk2", "RAM disk3", and so on.
If you don't like dealing with the command line you can use Esperance DV which is freeware. It also has some nice features like restoring at startup and automatically moving the Safari cache to the RAM disk.
Benefits:
Anything that uses a scratch disk will benefit form a RAM disk. Video and image processing times will be greatly improved. Rendering 3D objects will be much faster.
Any program that requires a lot of real-time disk access will benefit from faster seek times.
It reduces power consumption. If you watch a movie on a plane, put it on a RAM disk. It will save your battery life.
Security is improved. Anything on the disk at shutdown is gone forever, no need to wipe the disk.
Increases your hard disk life. The less you use your hard disks the longer they last. The more you use a RAM disk the less you use your hard disk. Hence, the more you use a RAM disk the longer your HD will last.
Risks:
It works like any other drive +so long as the computer is running+. If you lose power or shut down the machine you lose whatever was on the disk forever.
To state the obvious: it uses up some of your RAM.
Finally let me say there are a lot of technical details I left out in describing the benefits, none of which affect the basic points that RAM is faster, more secure, and uses less power than a HD.

Answer 1

Slow down a bit and think this through.
CUPS on linux is nearly identical to CUPS on OS X - but there is no Mac-to-Mac Apple proprietary print sharing. Rather, on linux you are sharing the printer using standard printing protocols. Just like on the Mac (when using the standard protocols like Windows/SMB or IP printing), linux print queues expect postscript input. Try using a generic postscript driver from the mac.
And when you add the printer via Windows Printing or IP > LPD or IPP, you will need to know the queue name for that printer from the linux box. (one computer with one IP address can have multiple printers - so what's the additional address info to print to your desired printer? - queue name.)
HTH