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Fast-Booting Text-Editor Operating System?

Posted by timothy on from the hell-you-say dept.

cgenman writes "What is the fastest booting operating system out there that is still sufficient for editing text? Quite frequently, I'll need to boot my laptop and edit a few lines of text, or jot down an idea or two. XP loads in roughly 4 minutes to usable, and Ubuntu loads in about 60 seconds. Both feel like an eternity if there isn't a pen and paper around. What is the best operating system that people have found which would load to useable in under 20 seconds, can edit text files in something a little more friendly than VI or EMACS, yet can still access fat32 formatted USB drives? GUIs aren't required, but commands which require arcane foreknowledge or a cheat sheet are out."

12 of 660 comments (clear)

  1. toms root by alex4u2nv · · Score: 4, Interesting

    tomsroot http://www.toms.net/rb/

    --
    -Alex. http://bit.ly/1iVPtfA
  2. DOS. by FlyByPC · · Score: 3, Interesting

    DOS Edit does a good job at basic text editing -- and on any reasonably modern laptop, DOS should boot amazingly quickly.

    If that's not fast enough for you, a TRS-80 Model 100 might do. They boot nearly instantly and have a built-in text editor. (The 32K max memory capacity might be a bit limiting, though.)

    --
    Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
  3. Smartphone? by meta-monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Aren't you more likely to have your cellphone in your pocket than be lugging around a laptop? I just jot notes on my iPhone.

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
  4. ARM Linux board by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Many of these will boot in less than 3 sec to a command console.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  5. Heh - I thought TFA was going to be a faster emacs by multipartmixed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That said, if i really cared to have a text-editor-capable OS boot quickly, _and_ it needed FAT32.

    Hmm.

    Is VFAT close enough for ya? Win98 boot disk transmuted onto a USB dongle with the VFAT driver in the config.sys. Boot only to command.com, not the full OS.

    It'll probably take longer for your box to POST than to boot that puppy.

    Me, I just write shit on my hand with a sharpie.

    --

    Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
  6. Use a DS? by Chris+Pimlott · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Resume on a DS is practically instantaneous, at least for commercial titles, and there's a lively homebrew scene, maybe there's already something out there that might work out for you? Plus very portable and easy to scribble with the touchscreen, and great battery life.

    Oh, and games too :)

  7. MenuetOS by mustafap · · Score: 3, Interesting

    www.menuetos.org

    Both 64 and 32 bit versions.

    I think you'll find that boots *Very* fast.

    --
    Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
  8. Our reflectometer works with a DOS PC by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last Friday I was using our reflectometer and was impressed by the fact that the PC that controls it boots in about 6 seconds directly into the application! It's based on DOS and the PC is a .... 33MHz Intel 386! It would be cool if a contemporary PC based on a 3GHz CPU could boot into such an application in 0.06 seconds. I know, I/O is the main bottleneck, I guess, though hard disks have indeed gotten about 100 times faster in data transfer, and about 5 times faster in seek time, since the 386 was the hotness.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  9. Try Syllable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hi,

    My name is Rick Caudill and I work on the Syllable project. I would say you should give Syllable(www.syllable.org) a try. My machine boots to a gui within 10 seconds. Just give it a try

  10. Re:Wake up by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    LinuxBIOS/Coreboot will get a system up in 3 seconds or less. Add in a busybox/light distro, and you've usable editors, network tools, utilities and the BSD games available about as fast as you'll get. Well, if you replace the flash with a large enough PROM, you might shave a little more time, as a permanent gate should be faster than a programmable gate.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  11. Re:Suspend to disk? by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You don't need a new OS, you need a new motherboard.

    Asus has "Express Gate" on their newer mobos that allow you to boot into a web-surfing, email only mini OS in "less than 5 seconds" without having to worry about whether you slept, suspended or hibernated the previous tme you shut down your PC.

    Ok, its basically an on-board Linix distro, so you do need a better OS after all.

  12. AmigaOS by aliquis · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I belive my Amiga booted in 8 seconds before I added all the patches, tools and accessories you wanted .. If you aborted the shell before loading Workbench you would probably shave off two-three seconds more ...

    Had some miniemacs with the OS, and it seems it can use fat32:
    http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/fat32.html

    You can get USB aswell:
    http://www.amigau.com/c-amiga/hardware.htm

    I realise it's not a viable alternative today, but it's kind of sad how bad things develop considering how much faster todays machines is.

    Reminds me of a youtube video with a Mac Classic running Claris Works (or something similar) and a more modern PC running Office Word or whatever, boot systems booting up, running the word processor and then writing something (and eventually saving and turning the machine of as well.)
    Of course the new software is much more advanced, but the old mac did it faster .. And sometimes people don't need much more than that application offered.