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?"
What will they be used for? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
Un, no. Splashtop requires new hardware. He specifically wants to repurpose old hardware.
Re:Splashtop (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of the questioner's desire to re-purpose old, existing, hardware did you not understand?
Recycle for the gold content (Score:2, Insightful)
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. :-)
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: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.
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.
Pointless discussion (Score:2, Insightful)
I have to agree that this is a pointless discussion. As long as we don't know the purpose or application required, the OS discussion is pointless. The application will usually dictate the environment, not the other way around.
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:Splashtop (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux with a RAMdisk (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Who needs an os? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Why is fast booting important? (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: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: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.
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:Recycle for the gold content (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. But they stopped doing that for some reason.
Using old hardware is rarely worth it. It uses more power, is a maintenance nightmare (Where can I find a replacement motherboard that will work in this old thing?) and software support has ended, meaning if you don't have drivers you are SOL, you have to live with any bugs that exist (or fix them yourself) and no one develops new applications to run on them. Even if you're running a soft firewall or basic server you're still better off with a new machine simply for the power savings.
The only time when it makes sense is when you have some mission critical software that won't run on anything else.
Re:Why is fast booting important? (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.
Re:BeOS (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:Linux + hibernate (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this only shows how little information the OP gave us. Evidently anything is a better choice than WinME for any computer that has to run anything, but if all we know is that it will be off for most of the time and it has to boot quickly, it's a perfect WinME scenario. You take advantage of its only strength, and you don't have to use it all the time.