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Fast-Booting OS for Usually-Off Appliance PCs?

Posted by timothy on from the zero-to-sixty-in-zilch-dot-two dept.

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?"

4 of 523 comments (clear)

  1. Well, by SuiteSisterMary · · 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.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  2. Re:BeOS by Lord+Kano · · 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

    --
    "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  3. Re:BeOS by Ucklak · · 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.

    --
    if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
  4. Re:Linux + hibernate by AJWM · · 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).

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    -- Alastair