Firefox & tmpfs

[Gilles Gravier]

Basil,

On 11/01/2011 08:05, Basil Chupin wrote:
> On 11/01/2011 17:35, Sandy Harris wrote:
>> I have a machine with lots of RAM, 8 gigs in a single-user
>> desktop machine that runs Open Office, Firefox, and not
>> much else. /tmp is already on tmpfs.
>>
>> I'd like to put the Firefox cache on tmpfs as well. How?
>> Edit a Firefox config file to put the cache into /tmp?
>> Symlink the existing cache directory to one in /tmp?
>> Start another instance of tmpfs for this?
>
> To begin with, I don't understand why you would want to do this.
>
> You can delete the FF's CACHE every time you close FF by simply using
> the Edit/Preferences menu, for example.
>
> (What's so special about /tmp which requires you to put it into tmpfs?)
>

Performance. :)

Old versions of Firefox you could easily configure the size of RAM cache
as well as file system cache... On modern versions I can only see a
setting for "Cache" which is the filesystem one.

If you put the cache in a tmpfs, that is, in fact, RAM (which is why it
gets deleted at each reboot).

If you have plenty of RAM (and Sandy has 8 gigs, plenty for doing only
open office and firefox on a single user desktop) then allocating a gig
or so to tmpfs and putting firefox cache in there is a great way to
increase firefox caching performance by orders of magnitude.

Gilles.