LinuxBIOS Gets GUI

LWATCDR writes "Has a great write up on combining LinuxBios a Linux kernel, busybox, X, a window manager, and rxvt into a two meg flash chip. So what does get you? A six second boot time for one. All sorts of uses come to mind. Terminals to use with the Linux Terminal server. A very fast booting embedded system like a Car computer. With every one pushing for multi-core cpus, mega gigabyte drives and many gigabytes of ram it is interesting to see how small you can go."

Slashdotted

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I hope they weren't running their webserver with it.

How small you _can_ you go?

[bubbl07]

[...] it is interesting to see how small you can go."

Apparently, it's normal and happens to lots of computers. It's not the size of the hard drive, it's how fast you can boot up.

Re:Two megs?

[Rob the Bold]

Uh, shouldn't that be a two gig flash chip, not two meg? X is a bit bigger than two megs, last time I checked.

Two gigs? What do you need? Pre-downloaded pr0n?

Yeah, but...

[guy-in-corner]

...does it run Windows?

Sorry.

Re:Two megs?

[pipatron]

Indeed, it's well known and accepted that Mebioctets is the only correct word for this.

See for example http://zapatopi.net/labs/kibioctets.html [zapatopi.net]

Imagine....

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a beowulf cluster of these....

Re:Two megs?

[udippel]

In IT, size matters - small is good.
Explains a lot really :)

Micro-soft ?

Re:Two megs?

[cyclop]

Whoa, a Linux BIOS with pre-downloaded pr0n! It would have an instant market! "From cold iron to pr0n in 6 seconds!"

Re:Two megs?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

TWO MEBIBYTES

Did you just come back from the dentist or something?

Try it again after the novocaine wears off.

Re:Two megs?

[slackmaster2000]

It's asinine because of the douchebag factor.

So you're talking to your uncle who's asking you, the family "computer genius", some questions about which memory module he should consider buying to upgrade his computer. You say something like, "well, I think that you should get at least two gibibytes total." Your uncle replies, "What's a gibibyte?" You proudly declare, "A gibibyte is 1,024 mebibytes, or two to the power of 30 bytes. Computers are binary machines, and memory is manufactured in sizes accordingly, not using base-10, which would yield 'megabytes' and 'gigabytes', which are 1 million and 1 billion bytes, respectively. Thus, when we talk about computer memory, we use mebibytes and gibibytes, even though manufacturers incorrectly use megabytes and gigabytes on their packaging."

Your uncle thanks you and after you depart he turns to your father and says, "what a douchebag."

Another reason to not use mebibyte and gibibyte or any of the baby-talk bytes, unless it's absolutely necessary, is that they're not recognized by Firefox's spell checker.

Re:Fast boot times?

[Ostrich25]

My car stereo (www.empeg.com) has been able to fast boot linux from flash for over 7 years.

I don't have that much time to wait for my car stereo to boot! Even my iPod can boot in less than 7 years.