Fast-Booting OS for Usually-Off Appliance PCs? 523
An anonymous reader writes "I have some older computer equipment at work that I want to re-purpose as application appliances. The machines will sit, unpowered, until needed, then powered up. No way around the 'sitting powered off' — company directive. What is the quickest-booting OS I could use for them? I know about LinuxBIOS, but that would require new hardware, which does not go along which the re-purposing theme. Some of them do not need to be connected to a network, so an old version of Linux or Windows 98 are possible. DOS is too old to consider. So what are my options?"
DOS (Score:3, Funny)
What will they be used for? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:5, Funny)
What is their purpose?
Their purpose is to run a fast booting OS
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Funny)
In that case, can't get much faster than Grub. People will tell you it's a bootloader, but it has cat, so it must be an OS!
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Funny)
In that case, can't get much faster than Grub. People will tell you it's a bootloader, but it has cat, so it must be an OS!
Well it *can* do pretty much everything DOS can (load stuff that actually does something), except it comes with a nicer editor and the bundled games are better.
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Insightful)
To expand on this idea as well, perhaps if the application is important enough, this "company directive" will be not quite so direct...iveness.
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:5, Funny)
Porn more than likely.
Since he said this is for company computers, you'd think that for porn "fast power-off times" would be more important than "fast boot times". But that doesn't seem like as much of a challenge now, does it?
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:5, Funny)
....you'd think that for porn "fast power-off times" would be more important than "fast boot times".
That and replacing the CD drive with a tissue dispenser.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Funny)
Since he said this is for company computers, you'd think that for porn "fast power-off times" would be more important than "fast boot times". But that doesn't seem like as much of a challenge now, does it?
The company could be a sperm bank.
Linux + hibernate (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Suspend to disk can be really fast if there is very little running. The more running, the more has to be swapped out to disk, then reloaded from disk at boot.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Linux + hibernate (Score:5, Funny)
You've gotta admit though, that game sounds awesome.
Re:Linux + hibernate (Score:5, Interesting)
With Linux you won't have to look for drivers, they'll be built in. Linux has phenomenal support for hardware, that tends to get better as the hardware ages -- Linux developers have incentive to keep supporting it, unlike the hardware vendors. (Barring really crippled stuff like winmodems, but even those have some support).
Depending on the age/capability of the hardware you might need to go with an older version of a distro or just omit a bunch of default crap on the install. I've got some old Pentium boxen that run fine but modern distros gripe about not having enough RAM to run the graphic installer. Boots fast, though, unless it decides that two years since the last fsck is too long and forces it (override with tunefs).
Re:Linux + hibernate (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux + hibernate (Score:5, Interesting)
I have old Dells, old Gateways, old IBM's, old Compaqs and HPs. Never had a problem with built-in video. Only had one problem with built-in sound that was quickly solved by looking at the configuration (non-standard) in Windows 98. Never a problem with built in CD drives or CD or DVD drives I bought from a store. (The only exception was an Acer CD drive somebody gave me -- didn't work worth a damn, I never bothered trying it in Windows.) I've used all kinds of SCSI, Firewire, USB and serial gizmos, and parallel printers, without a problem. Perhaps I was just never stupid enough to buy old parallel non-printer peripherals. There have been a few odd-ball USB gizmos -- a cheapo (giveaway) digital camera, for example -- that didn't work on Linux, but those had a hard time working on Windows, even assuming you could find the driver disk that originally came with it or find somewhere on the net to download a driver.
Now, the old Dells, HPs, etc have been retired office machines, not consumer boxes. In my experience the manufacturers tend to cut more corners in the consumer stuff (the margins are thin as it is) and so may be more likely to use oddball parts or configurations that are less well supported. If the repurposed machines the OP was talking about were business machines (even desktops), they're more likely to "just work" with a Linux distro. In the OP's particular case, I'd say try both and go with what works best on those particular systems.
Well, (Score:5, Interesting)
There's always BeOS, which prided itself on lightning-fast load times. Otherwise, a rather stripped down UNIX-alike would do you fine.
BeOS (Score:5, Informative)
BeOS really was pretty amazing in this respect, and some others. Multithreading was far ahead of anything else at the time, and probably since, as well. On some older machine (P3-ish; much slower HDD than nowadays) I clocked boot time at 15 seconds, OS/2 and Linux distros of the time were more like 1-1.5 minutes on the same hardware.
The way it booted so fast was largely by deferring a lot of the "initialization" stuff until the system was "booted". This is nothing like the awful way Windows (and to a lesser extent KDE/Gnome desktops) keep loading stuff for a good while, letting you see the desktop for a minute before you can really do anything. Under BeOS, said multithreading was well utilized to give you a responsive GUI right at that 15 seconds, but still do background loads of various background processes that you didn't *really* need immediately.
Of course, if you immediately launched something that *did* need the services of something loading in a background thread, you'd obviously have to wait a few more seconds. But even all that background loading was very efficient, and practically, by the time you could make a few clicks, it was loaded.
Re:BeOS (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when one of the Mac magazines gave away a BeOS preview release. I installed it on my 6400/200. I was able to play 8 quicktime movies all at the same time with no noticeable performace hit. I was really stoked about the possibilities. Unfortunately, Apple didn't go with Be and we'll never know what could have been.
LK
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
M$ made OEM's not put BEOS on systems and that killed them.
Re:BeOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to sell your product is offering it at a discount to prospective OEMs, or providing them a bonus for "recommending" it.
Unfair business practice is refusing to sell them copies of Windows unless they made it their exclusive OS option.
Re:BeOS (Score:4, Interesting)
BeOS was dying at that time. All Microsoft's pressure did was put a stake in its heart.
You're wrong. BeOS was thriving at the time. In fact, when the bootloader thing became public, Compaq had made an agreement with BeOS to install BeOS on every machine they made along with windows. They were going to dual boot through the Beos bootloader, until microsoft brought to their (compaq's) attention that their agreement said that if Windows was installed, it HAD to be loaded with the MS bootloader, which couldn't boot any non-ms product. That's how they got hosed. They weren't dying, they were thriving. That pretty much stopped the train.
Re:BeOS (Score:5, Interesting)
I believe that Microsoft told OEM partners that if they offered BeOS as an alternative, they would lose the ability to sell Microsoft's OSs.
That's what happened.
Re:BeOS (Score:4, Informative)
To add some detail, Microsoft's Windows license to PC manufacturers gave them highly preferential pricing if they agreed to pay for a Windows license on every PC shipped, and to not shipping any other OS with their PC's, with the difference in price so high that no OEM could possibly agree to pay the higher price. The restriction was quite extreme - Microsoft blocked several companies from even shipping a BeOS CD in the same box as a "BeOS PC" - I think Fujitsu actually shipped PC's for a little while with no OS, and a form that you could fill out and send them so that they would FedEx you a copy of BeOS. Of course, since they had to pay for Windows anyway, the BeOS PC was not only more complex (you had to order the install CD, then do the OS install) but cost more (since you had to pay for both Windows and BeOS).
By the time the DoJ settlement clarified that this restriction was illegal, BeOS was long dead.
I miss BeOS. On a ThinkPad, BeOS would boot and be running so quickly that if I powered on as I took it from my laptop bag it was ready by the time I put my laptop down and opened the screen. Much faster than Windows coming back from hibernation.
Of course, the old install CD's still work, so if you just need a fast booting OS with a web browser, email, etc., you could probably still run it.
Re:BeOS (Score:5, Informative)
we'll never know what could have been.
Maybe we will - http://www.haiku-os.org/ [haiku-os.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Awesome!
Just downloaded the VMWare image, and it booted to a usable state in < 20 seconds. That compares with around 90 seconds for a Knoppix ISO image to boot from the same VMWare console.
When there are some apps for Haiku, I'll definitely be installing it on my home machine as an alternative and something to play with.
Re:BeOS (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately, Apple didn't go with Be and we'll never know what could have been.
Multiple threads of slashdotters nostalgically longing for the days of NeXTStep to return?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And at that same time there were Apple bigots who raved about the power of ... was it system 7 at that time? And someone else makes an OS for the hardware they already own that completely dominates their operating system in every single way. Most of them weren't even aware of the power they were missing out on.
I'd still take BeOS over OS X, if there were any decent apps for it, and current development.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly, perhaps the greatest legacy of BeOS is this little Zork spoof [weekly.org] about writing a graphic driver.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I was working on BeOS back then (video drivers, on contract to Be, Inc), and I have to say it depends on how you define "usable". Even when fully running it had no idea what a printer was, nor a network file system for that matter (not NFS, not SMB, nothing). The only way to transfer files was via FTP, and since BeOS had no real concept of users there was only one login/password for FTP access, with full read/write permission to everything.
The only thing in the whole system that had any concept of user wa
Re:Well, (Score:5, Interesting)
BeOS was as close to "instant on" as I've ever seen in an OS. Everyone who saw it was amazed. My computer took longer to go through the BIOS screens than BeOS took to load. Once the splashscreen appeared it was at the desktop in 5 seconds. I wonder how well Haiku performs in this regard.
Zeta (OS) (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Try AmigaOS loading from a proper hard drive instead of floppy, it takes longer to spin up the drive than it does to boot to workbench. I could get my A4000 to boot in 5 seconds from pressing the power switch.
I wonder what one of those solid state drives would do for it... I have a 32Mb solid state IDE drive somewhere, thats big enough for AmigaOS...
More info is needed on what they need to do? (Score:4, Interesting)
Dos may work well as well as windows 3.11 or windows 98.
A CF based disk will boot fast as well as a ssd.
Re:More info is needed on what they need to do? (Score:4, Informative)
That's funny, because the latest version of DOS that I have is dated September 3, 2006 [ibiblio.org].
Is that too old now?
Re:More info is needed on what they need to do? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's silly. If MSDOS/Freedos will do the job, why the hell would it be too old to consider? It's far more stable than later MS OSes and will boot nearly instantaneously. Moreover, it is the only PC OS that is almost simple enough to understand. A fair variety of software is available that will run under MSDOS with a DOS extender to provide access to memory above 1MB.
Next choice would be Windows 95 with all two dozen service packs. Or OSR2. It will boot faster than Windows 98 (Less crap) and will support a suprising amount of Windows software. I'm not entirely sure why, but enabling MSDOS disk caching will speed up Windows 95 boot by 10% or so.
It may be necessary to spend time tuning the BIOS, and maybe even reconfiguring IDE hard drives and CDROM drives. Some older BIOSes can take a loooooooong time -- like 30 seconds plus -- dealing with pathological IDE configurations.
Or Linux. I don't know if Slackware still has SlackZIP, but it's specifically intended to boot from MSDOS/Windows 9 environments -- which means that you can set it up to run as desired while still having a functioning OS, then replace the bootloader to boot directly to Linux.
One caution. Unless the operation has a generous people budget and no hardware budget or is going to deploy dozens of identical boxes, it is almost always going to be more cost effective to buy a prebuilt appliance than to roll your own.
BeOS? (Score:5, Informative)
More realistically, there is this interesting Linux distribution, Webconverger:
http://webconverger.com/ [webconverger.com]
I've used it for a few web-only systems. Boots up fast enough. Use it as a starting point to tweak. Basically, firefox becomes your operating system and UI. Neat idea.
re (Score:5, Informative)
Re:re (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:re (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, really. You can get reasonably modern hardware for $400-$500. My quad-core machine was only $1200, and it's fairly loaded. Expense accounts for this? What is your hourly salary? How many hours do you need to waste for it to be more worth it to the company to simply buy a new machine? Probably less than the amount of time it'll take to read this thread, procure whatever OS(es) you settle on trying, and install one after another until you find one that suits whatever task you have for the machine. So, just buy a $1000 machine, install VirtualBox or VMWare on it, install the special OS there, and you'll be off and running far faster, and far cheaper, than trying to repurpose hardware better sent to the recycler.
Maybe that's a possibility in your office.
In the increasingly bureaucratic world that I work in, any purchase has to be vetted by at least 2 levels of management. If it's over $500, then 3 levels.
And if it says "computer" anywhere on the invoice, it has to go thru IT, and has to "belong" to them, even if it's going to be a non-networked VT100 emulator.
And it takes longer than 6 weeks (which is how long I've been currently waiting.
In the meantime, I have frankenstiened a bunch of cast-offs ("here lemme help you schlep that junk to the bin...") into service until my boss manages to push the official request thru the pointy-haired quagmire.
OpenBSD? (Score:4, Interesting)
Fast boot (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fast boot (Score:5, Funny)
Linux with a RAMdisk (Score:4, Insightful)
Boot from a RAMdisk filesystem and make it as small as possible. Rip out all the startup scripts and write your own that just runs the one or two things you actually need running, runs ifconfig, route, etc. manually with hard-coded info (or starts dhclient/pump/dhcpcd). Compile the minimum number of possible drivers into the kernel and don't include any modules at all, nor tools to load modules. Include a bare-bones GUI layer like Nano-X and write your applications using pure Xlib if you can. Otherwise, use the most lightweight WM and GUI toolkit you can find (e.g. straight Tcl/Tk).
For permanent storage, mount a small (e.g. 300 MB) filesystem on a flash card so that the fsck takes just a couple of seconds even if forced. :-)
Not enough information (Score:5, Informative)
Just to be clear: You intend to have old machines sitting around unpowered and then someone WALKS UP TO THEM and presses the power button. The user then waits for the OS to boot and does his thing. Correct?v
So what are these systems being used for? Kiosks? This is critical to determining what you need. For example, QNX boots very quickly but it's an embedded Unix system. But QNX probably won't run whatever app it is you want to run on these systems.
Basically, you said they are going to be application appliances. WHAT application?
Re:Not enough information (Score:5, Informative)
I agree this is too little information, so I will take advantage of the vagueness to walk a decade down memory lane. :-)
Back in 1998 when I was first getting into Linux and other OSs--back when we thought OSs besides Windows had a chance because Windows was so crappy and all these others were so great--there were a couple experiments that were fun.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
A bit later I bought a 1 GHz PIII HP Pavillion. After I replaced the 60 GB WD HDD with a 13 GB unit (big drives are for servers; clients get small drives) and replaced the trialware-laden WinME with Win98 boot times dropped from 35 seconds to 25. That's gotta be 6, 7 years ago by now... how old is your box?
I always found ME to boot much faster than 98/98SE, but that was the only improvement... Oh and defrag was quicker, it would usually finish before something crashed or locked up.
Why is fast booting important? (Score:3, Insightful)
You haven't said what exactly these machines are going to be doing, but I fail to see why the extra time that one OS takes over another is a factor to deal with.
If it takes an extra 90 seconds to boot an OS that is stable and reliable, how does shaving that 90 seconds save anything?
Optimizing for boot time over everything else seems very foolish to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Optimizing for boot time over everything else seems very foolish to me.
I guess that's true if you're designing a web server. Probably not if you're designing a computer-controlled defibrillator.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If the OP is going for greater than 5-nines availability they should buy new computers rather than using the dusty boxes they found in basement.
DSL and Puppy (Score:5, Informative)
Take a look at DSL and Puppy Linux. Both are tiny and would boot quickly from a CompactFlash. DSL is probably better for all-around appliance use; Puppy is intended for use as a desktop OS.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ [damnsmalllinux.org]
http://www.puppylinux.org/ [puppylinux.org]
steveha
Re:DSL and Puppy (Score:4, Informative)
I would suggest Slitaz [slitaz.org] myself. Hella useful, hella compact.
MenuetOS (Score:3, Interesting)
MenuetOS [menuetos.net] Its a bit hardcore though, and you would probably have a hard time getting 'normal' applications to work, but its tiny and quick, although sort of a beta still.
But if you know ASM, its could be a miracle cure or something...
MenuetOS is an Operating System in development for the PC written entirely in 32/64 bit assembly language, and released under the License. It supports 32/64 bit x86 assembly programming for smaller, faster and less resource hungry applications.
Menuet has no roots within UNIX or the POSIX standards, nor is it based on any operating system. The design goal has been to remove the extra layers between different parts of an OS, which normally complicate programming and create bugs.
Menuet's application structure is not specifically reserved for asm programming since the header can be produced with practically any other language. However, the overall application programming design is intended for easy 32/64 bit asm programming. Menuet's responsive GUI is easy to handle with assembly language.
Features:
- Pre-emptive multitasking with 1000hz scheduler, multithreading, ring-3 protection
- Responsive GUI with resolutions up to 1280x1024, 16 million colours
- Free-form, transparent and skinnable application windows, drag'n drop
- IDE: Editor/Assembler for applications
- USB 2.0 Hi-speed storage support
- TCP/IP stack with Loopback & Ethernet drivers
- Email/ftp/http/chess clients and ftp/mp3/http servers
- Hard real-time data fetch
- Fits on a single floppy
Happens to be a favorite of mine (not mine as in created), although probably not suited to your needs judging by the brief summary.
HIBERNATE (Score:4, Informative)
Any OS with hibernate should be quick enough. I doubt systems vary too much between them. Anything that uses minimal ram and hance has less to load on boot. Just go with whatever OS suits you best.
Kids these days (Score:3, Informative)
You have a requirement for fast booting but you just blunder ahead and elimiate DOS from the running right from the start.
DOS can make a very capable platform if you don't need the support services of a more sophisticated OS. There is no question that it can be made to boot faster than most other off the shelf OS's. You don't mention what you need to run on these machines so it is hard to tell what will be suitable for you. You can run most *NIX shell apps under a DOS environment using DJGPP and its 32-bit extender. FreeDOS has a lot of drivers to handle more modern hardware. If you need something closer to a true *NIX system that boots fast, QNX is worth considering too.
application appliances? (Score:3, Interesting)
Windows 2000 hibernate? (Score:3, Interesting)
On a system with that little ram the default install will use very little memory from a fresh boot and a lot of stuff can still be turned off to get it smaller.
I kind of relied on it shutting down and starting up fast for back to back classes. The laptop was already old and didn't have a working battery so it was a full power down every class. $1200 a semester in books FTL.
Depends on where your slowness is now (Score:4, Informative)
I have personally seen the kernel portion of a boot on an embedded board reduced to 186 milliseconds, using aggressive techniques such as Execute-in-Place.
For user space, customize your init scripts (actually, dump your init scripts in favor of one compiled /sbin/init binary).
In the x86 space, with legacy hardware, I think the thing that will give you the most problem is BIOS. I know of products with custom code that replaces BIOS, that load the kernel from ROM in under 150 milliseconds. But that's probably more effort than you are interested in. You may want to check out what options are available in your current (legacy) BIOS for skipping things like the POST test, etc.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right. I just measured this on my PC with Debian Etch:
It's not hard to get those 14s down to somet
Eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Windows 98 is okay but DOS is too old? Eh?
First, we have NO idea what you actually want. Are these going to be running dumb terminals, displays, "embedded device" roles, what? What sort of machines are we talking about? What sort of budget do you consider acceptable?
Seriously, if you want things to boot THAT quick, you're either going to have to spend money (LinuxBIOS, replacing with ARM or other embedded devices etc.) or you're going to have to compromise (DOS or some other really-cut-down OS). FreeDOS is used in these sorts of things all the time, even for networking appliances with appropriate drivers loaded. People have FreeDOS MP3 players in place of their CD-players in their car. Virtually-instant to boot.
Back in the day, you could get an old DOS machine to boot really quickly if you optimised everything and cut out all the cruft (BIOS boot times were actually a large part of it, unfortunately, what with memory-checks, floppy-checks etc.) . Guess what, you won't get that same machine to boot any quicker today without replacing parts.
If you have minimal actual software requirements (i.e. they ain't doing anything fancy and need to boot REALLY fast), then you're looking at DOS. Otherwise you're looking at Linux (if you want to keep licensing, support, compatibility costs down) unless you want to buy XP licenses for them all. Wouldn't like to think what Windows 98 would work like in this on/off scenario. I suspect that it would start crashing out, hitting filesystem checks, etc. eventually no matter what you tried. And Windows 98 is SLOW to boot. Incredibly so. For a start, it loads DOS first and then kicks itself in after that!
After you've sorted the OS, if you're still struggling then you can look at things like LinuxBIOS (sorry, but that's the only way you'll speed up the BIOS boot times on older PC's but the chances are that it's just not supported for your chipset).
To be honest, from a power-saving perspective, just bin the lot (see if you can get a few quid for them first) and then buy some Gumstix or similar embedded board, Mini-ITX etc. You can literally leave something like that on 24/7 and not pull anywhere near the power you would draw with an old PC in one hour. And you can have them boot extremely fast and minimally.
Re-using old hardware is great. Expecting it to perform brilliantly isn't. Booting reliably into a powerful, full-featured OS in a handful of seconds *is* performing brilliantly. We couldn't do it back in the days of DOS devices with standard PC's, you aren't going to manage it now without making some cutbacks on your expectations. And then for about £50 each, you can get tiny, powerful, power-saving, fan-free, embedded ARM units with Linux that'll do anything you want.
You have unrealistic expectations.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
Un, no. Splashtop requires new hardware. He specifically wants to repurpose old hardware.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Informative)
All well and good he wants to "save money" and re-use existing hardware, but changing an OS is going to mean a LOT of time, testing, and likely new software. The cost of this will FAR out shadow the costs of a new piece of compatible hardware...
Of course, before you can ask what OS to run, we might want to know what applications it's being used for... and why exactly would an application appliance be powered off? this obviously isn't a database that gets regular attention, or any kind of security device, backup system, or other management system. so...
I'm assuming we're talking about legacy apps here then. In that case, I'm CERTAIN you have idle space and CPU time on existing servers. Throw a VM in there, and use that. When idle (hibernate, wake on LAN) it should use no more energy that the host would be when idle by itself, and if that host is a machine that DOES have to be on 24/7, then you're effectively using 0 additional power. It will wake on LAN in 15-30 seconds, maybe faster, and can auto hibernate again when idle. Simple, clean, and as a bonus, you can move the old hardware to your DR or testing lab.
New mobo == new PC with old case and drives (Score:5, Insightful)
Splashtop requires a new motherboard. Motherboards aren't always expensive.
But doesn't a new motherboard for a years-old PC typically have new, incompatible CPU and RAM sockets, which require a new CPU and new RAM? At that point, you're practically building a new PC with an old case and drives.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Splashtop requires a new motherboard. Motherboards aren't always expensive.
Since you need very specific ones they probably are and as someone else mentioned they won't work with older hardware. That's not counting whatever driver hell you may have with any peripherals.
And Splashtop is open source. If you go to their website and contact them, they will release source according to their site.
So you wouldn't even need a new motherboard then. Just install the Splashtop OS on your existing hardware.
Which will give you absolutely nothing, do you think it boots instantly by magic or something? Why in god's name do you think it requires specific motherboards or did you simply not think at all? Do you think that maybe those motherboard have some extra special hardware that let's splashtop do it's magic?
To quote wik
Re:Splashtop (Score:4, Informative)
It is an optimized Linux stack. It should boot from a HDD. It doesn't "require" a specific motherboard, so much as ASUS is the only company to currently integrate it in their motherboards. The integrate it by storing the Splashtop software stack on a flash chip.
Re:Splashtop (Score:4, Informative)
While that looks neat, there is no download for it.
"Splashtop is bundled with motherboards, desktops and notebooks by their manufacturers.
Currently, it is available with products from the following manufacturers:
Notebooks
ASUS
Motherboards
ASUS
Desktops"
So, unless you buy an ASUS machine, with this loaded, you look to be SOL.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Splashtop (Score:4, Informative)
The problem there is that you don't recompile DSL (and I'm sure Puppy either since, iirc, it was initially based on DSL).
I'm guessing he meant recompile the kernel to match the specific hardware. There's no point waiting for the kernel to scan for every SCSI device ever made if you don't have any. Also you can build a non-modular kernel and avoid the need to run module update scripts and eliminate the initrd. You can generally save several seconds this way if you really know what you're doing.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is an optimized Linux stack according to the site and developers section. It should install on a HDD in theory.
Re:Splashtop (Score:4, Insightful)
in theory, in theory, in theory.....
You say that a lot. He's not looking for something that works "in theory", but something that "actually works" in the real world.
I'm sure your suggestion is really, really awesome, "in theory". Unfortunately, there's a huge difference between the drawing board and actual application.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of the questioner's desire to re-purpose old, existing, hardware did you not understand?
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree.. he wants a complete OS/environment.
http://www.qnx.com/ [qnx.com]
you can get it's complete kit free nfor non commercial use. is INSANE FAST at booting if you do it right and is small.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know, how about the part where it's a stupid idea and he should just invest in a PC that isn't more than 10 years old?
Don't feed the trolls but...
There are those of us that like old cars, old planes, old trains, old things, for whatever reason. I myself enjoy having old rigs, there is nothing like launching Win 3.11 again to bring me straight back to middle school and my first computer. And when that software is running on the hardware of it's era it becomes so much sweeter. Or sometimes I like to overclock the old stuff, much trickier then it is now. Or sometimes I need a fan, or a case to mod as a rough draft... Yeah when you see something as irrelevant due to it's age and no other criteria you're really limiting yourself to that everything is disposable Wal-Mart style economy, and I pity you.
Re:Splashtop (Score:4, Interesting)
confession:
I have a IBM PC with a flip top case.
It is just too cool to get rid of.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Informative)
Can you afford the extra electricity to power the old PC, and the extra air conditioning to get rid of the massive amounts of heat that old thing is going to put out?
The old things don't put off heat... Listen to yourself. I can't tell you how many Pentiums/K6/Cryix based systems I've seen with no fan but the one in the PSU. Oh and the PSU's, when's the last time you've opened an old computer and found anything higher then 250-300watts max? Can't say that I have, ever. In fact when I received 6 Pentium D's a few weeks ago from an office upgrading all there kit all they came equipped with mere 250w PSU, and those are somewhat modern systems based on an architecture that was known for reaching up to 115 W in 3.6-3.8 GHz Prescotts. So yeah I think your point is moot and your talking out your ass. But we'll never know :) He didn't specify the hardware.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dude I've had it to here with old PCs as appliances. 250W PSU? Are you kidding me? Have you seen how much power a newish VIA mini-ITX board draws? Hint: it's in low single digits.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that simply having a PSU capable of supporting 250W is not the same thing as actually drawing 250W, right?
Or are you still learning?
Re:power usage. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Funny)
Look, it seems most people here would just like to see the guy get a new computer, so why not chip in and send him a crisp twenty.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Parent is correct. (Score:4, Informative)
Why do good posts like this so often get modded badly, while FALSE posts like those contradicting it get modded insightful.
Read:
"Splashtop is preinstalled on the hard drive or in the on-board Flash memory of new PCs and motherboards by their manufacturers. Splashtop is a software-only solution that requires no additional hardware. A small component of Splashtop is embedded in the BIOS of the PC - that's the part that runs as soon as you press the power button."
This should make it obvious, along with the couple intelligent posters who noted that it can boot from an HD.
Maybe Slashdot needs to start restricting mod points to those who aren't idiots?
Re:Parent is correct. (Score:4, Informative)
Since you can't GET Splashtop without buying the new hardware, that kinda kills it.
Re:Recycle for the gold content (Score:4, Insightful)
Older machines are often built better than newer faster stuff. I have several of the white Dell Optiplex machines doing infrastructure stuff for me. Most have uptimes measured in the span between upgrades of my op system (OpenBSD).
It takes almost no more time to install on a 500MHz Dell than some 2.xGHz box. Yes, the disk may take longer to format--but how often are you going to be doing that?
Given the various quality problems with new systems, I'll stick with the older slower systems when I can, which is most of the time.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Cite please. All of my equipment has only become more reliable with each generation. (With the exception of my TI 99-4a. No moving parts, would probably survive an EMP.) Unless you're buying bargain basement stuff, but since this stuff is my business and livelihood it would be foolish to do that.
Somewhere I still have a few hard drives that have charts on the case where the manufacturer's QC would write the bad sectors it shipped with in pen.
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misspelled EMACS
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misspelled EMACS
Hmm, nope:
(P)erfect (E)macs (R)e-writing (L)anguage
He got it right.
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, a great choice but do you know any good text editor that would run on it?
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:4, Funny)
maybe try to WINE notepad?
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Intel wanted to create their own new thing so that they could build in DRM and Treacherous Computing.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Did it all the time back in the day.
That would be "back in the decade" now, by almost a month.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)