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LinuxBIOS Gets GUI

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the well-isn't-that-pretty dept.

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."

2 of 171 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Two megs? by stoolpigeon · · Score: 5, Informative

    tfa is like 10 sentences - including this one The setup: LinuxBIOS + a Linux kernel + BusyBox + a tiny X11 server (Kdrive) + the Matchbox window manager + rxvt.(emphasis mine)

    --
    It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
  2. Re:Two megs? by Sparr0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Your misconception illustrates precisely why projects like this are awesome. No, the summary was not incorrect. They really did this in TWO MEBIBYTES. Two gigs would be completely non-impressive, you can fit any desktop linux distro in that. Doing it all without X in 1.44MB, with dozens of diagnostic tools, is common on rescue floppy distros. Adding an X server (*NOT* XFree or XOrg, mind you) in under 2MiB is impressive but not impossible.