What's The Fastest Loading OS For x86? 37
core10k asks: "I have a question concerning quick loading operating systems. I have a laptop that I use which I'd *like* to have running in the 10 seconds or so it takes for the BIOS to heat up, but then I have to wait for Windows 98 to load. And I know that Linux is even slower loading up. So I was wondering, does anyone know of a fast-loading operating system that has a half-decent (not necessarily great) C/C++ and GUI toolkit?"
Re:Suspend to disk (Score:1)
Windows faster??? (Score:1)
Even better, suspend to RAM (Score:1)
My two cents.- ----------------------------------
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Re:BeOS (Score:1)
BeOS is indeed nice, but a minimum version of the linux system is even faster - the main bottleneck being time to mount the ext2 partition. ReiserFS mounts much faster, so Linux with ReiserFS booting into 'linux single' is the fastest I can think of. BeOS is the fastest booting complete environment.
Linux, or rather any UNIX, can sorta.. (Score:1)
Alexander Beyn
Re:Linux and Boot time (Score:1)
Re:BeOS, BIOS, DOS, and DJGPP. (Score:1)
Beos is fastest now (Score:1)
...
Only problem was Beos didn't support the K-5 so it would run until I started a program then...KABOOM!
Try Linux BIOS! (Score:1)
The Linux BIOS Project [lanl.gov] was in this [slashdot.org] /. article just a week ago. It's not ready for prime time yet, but does all the BIOS step in about 0.1 seconds! Combine this with the right Linux distribution (debian has a fast (binary) service startup program - do others?), and a carful choice of which services you run, and Linux would boot REALLY fast! :)
What about DOS? (Score:1)
And is vunerable to many virii.
But it does boot fast.
Re:Linux and Boot time (Score:1)
Linux took 1 min and 22.7 seconds from init to prompt.
I really don't know why windows takes so long to load.. oh well, since i'm in linux most (99.9%) of the time anyways, its not too much of a problem. but i do wonder why.. i may look under the hood and tweak it a bit.
Linux and Boot time (Score:1)
It's much faster then the 5 mins it takes for windows (2000 Professional)
I have an AMD k6-2 350 with 64M RAM. not bad, IMHO.
BeOS (Score:1)
And it's free. www.be.com
[easy way to get around windows partition - drop me an email, ben@kescom.net, if you want help]
Benjamin Stiglitz
KEScom Hosting
Linux is not slower loading (Score:1)
Chris Hagar
Re:QNX? (Score:1)
By the way, I saw the full version of QNX 4.54 pass by in alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.os a few months ago. Probably some people are just collecting OS'es..
Re:You have some control over linux load time (Score:1)
A lot of people do need sendmail (or, rather, an SMTP daemon of some sort) running, for fetchmail (and/or getting mail directly to your machine).
Re:QNX? (Score:1)
Re:Linux and Boot time (Score:1)
I don't see how the Microsoft crowd can say this beast of an OS is faster than its 9x brothers. And this is on a 466 with 96mb ram too.
Re:BeOS (Score:1)
Re:You have some control over linux load time (Score:1)
Re:Linux, or rather any UNIX, can sorta.. (Score:1)
Re:Linux and Boot time (Score:1)
Re:You have some control over linux load time (Score:1)
When we installed Linux (Red Hat 5.2 deluxe) for class in college, we clicked "Everything" for services to start at boot-time, and the boot-time wasn't noticeably longer than Win95 (although it wasn't booting to X.)
So if you turn off most everything (sendmail, named, finger, etc.), it should boot pretty quickly, and be a lot more secure.
-- LoonXTall
Re:Windows CE (Score:1)
WinCE still sucks pretty bad. I test devices running CE, and it has plenty of memory leaks here and there. And you know how well a typical piece of M$ software handles out of memory conditions... hehe
Re:Try Linux BIOS! (Score:1)
Could it be the.. (Score:1)
Suspend to disk (Score:2)
QNX? (Score:2)
It turned out to contain a contain an OS complete with windowing system and internet browser. Admittedly it didn't work first time, and I had to modify a couple of BIOS settings that it didn't like, but I was really impressed once I got it going. The windowing system took about twenty seconds to appear from the time the BIOS started the floppy going. It created a file system in RAM, and I was able to dial an ISP and surf. Some forms didn't work, and Java support is dubious, but you can't expect that much from something packed onto a 1.44 mb floppy.
The website [qnx.com] has a boot floppy image which you can download. The latest version claims to allow additional driver and application installion via the network. Apparently they are downloaded (into the ram disk? - I'm not sure about hard disk support at this stage) and installed on the fly.
This OS looks cool, and would totally rock with a hard disk , as it would boot in about four seconds. I suppose having a hard disk would lead to complicated boot routines that loaded permenantly stored drivers and other processes though, so that argument might not hold up . . . .
Ok Ok, it would suck for many applications, and is mainly targeted at developers at this stage , but all you hard core "thin client, server based" computing enthusiasts should check it out if you haven't already heard of it.
386 Linux (Score:2)
Check out an old version of slackware or maybe debian. RedHat is great and all but if you are looking for boot time rather than ease of configurability, etc. then it is terrible.
Also thought I would mention that it is an install of less than 100 MB, try doing that easily in RedHat.
Believe it: http://i386.sapien.net [sapien.net] (if it is down it is usually because of the NE2000 network card ((newest piece of hardware in the machine)))
You have some control over linux load time (Score:2)
Get to know your linux box. Mainstream distros are geared for everybody and do a lota stuff you probably don't give a damn about.
One other thing. Really large hard drives take forever to mount. look around there are ways to speed this up like reducing redundant fs checking (may not be a smart thing to do)
Citrix
Re:QNX? (Score:2)
One drawback to the demo disk is the fact that every time you boot you have to re-enter your ISP settings if you plan to try to surf. I think the license explicitly prohibits tinkering with the disk image in order to hard-code those values; I guess that's one reason they call it a "demo disk"!
I don't know if the license prohibits copying the disk image to the start of a bootable partition of a hard disk. I'm not sure this would even work because I believe the OS on the demo disk doesn't have hard-drive support.
I think you could get lots farther with Linux/BSD where you have unlimited ability to modify things.
BeOS (Score:2)
QNX (Score:2)
Very, very nice..
BeOS is also quite quick. I'd expect it to come in under thirty on decent last gen hardware.
Linux can also work, if you like a *nix style client. I've had P54D (166 Pentium) machines from post to login in under twenty. I was only starting a bare minimum of 'services' (inetd, routing, ethernet, card services) and running a very lean 2.0.xx kernel. The 1.2.xx series are even quicker, but may not have some of the device support you need..
IBM ROM BASIC (Score:2)
Loads at bus speed. (not available on all platforms unfortunately)
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Eric is chisled like a Greek Godess
Re:BeOS, BIOS, DOS, and DJGPP. (Score:2)
That's the Dos Extender being loaded. Basically it's a (relatively) small loader/overlay that switches into protected mode and handles the boring chore of thunking and relaying interrupts and all that delightfully mind numbing crap.
DOS4GW was generally associated with Watcom C++, while DJGPP commonly uses GO32 as its extender although they are easily interchangeable with a few code changes (slightly different API's). Whichever extended you use, they do more or less the same things : thunking interrupts, managing flat ram (vs 16-bit segmented ram), and giving nice detailed register dumps when they crash.
It depends on the services you load at startup (Score:2)
Concerning your need (C++ and GUI) I'd suggest BeOS or AtheOS. The problem with the latter being the lack of community. Tschüss!
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BeOS, BIOS, DOS, and DJGPP. (Score:3)
Well, BeOS is fast, that's for sure. You might also want to look at the Linux BIOS page [lanl.gov] - it promises VERY fast linux loading... when the work is done.
If all you want is a GUI of some type, DOS + Win 3.1 will load very fast, if you arrange it nicely. There's a DOS version of the GNU compiler environment here [delorie.com], so you can do C/C++ development under DOS, but I don't know about a GUI IDE. I recall there are several text IDEs.
DOS won't take up too much space, either, so you might be able to keep Win98 on there for other boot times.