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)
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:5, Funny)
I think you misspelled EMACS
Re:Windows 98 IS DOS (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:What will they be used for? (Score:5, Funny)
What is their purpose?
Their purpose is to run a fast booting OS
Re:Not enough information (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.
Re:Fast boot (Score:5, Funny)
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: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:What will they be used for? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:4, Funny)
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: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: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:5, Funny)
Re:What will they be used for? (Score:3, Funny)
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:Splashtop (Score:0, Funny)
Yeah, but in *theory* theory and practise are the same, so we only need to think about the theoretical!
Re:Who needs an os? (Score:4, Funny)
maybe try to WINE notepad?
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: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:What will they be used for? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:BeOS (Score:3, Funny)
Sadly, perhaps the greatest legacy of BeOS is this little Zork spoof [weekly.org] about writing a graphic driver.
Re:Linux + hibernate (Score:5, Funny)
You've gotta admit though, that game sounds awesome.
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.