Very Computer

Hi, Fellow Linuxers!

QNX has an excellent single floppy demo that asks the question:

"How did we put a POSIX realtime OS, a full windowing system,
an HTML 3.2 browser, an embedded web server, an Internet dialer,
TCP/IP, and more on a SINGLE 1.44M floppy?"

My question is -- can this be done with Linux?

Check out the cool QNX demo at http://www.qnx.com/iat/how.html

jla
CRASH.ORG

Quote:> Hi, Fellow Linuxers!

> QNX has an excellent single floppy demo that asks the question:

> "How did we put a POSIX realtime OS, a full windowing system,
> an HTML 3.2 browser, an embedded web server, an Internet dialer,
> TCP/IP, and more on a SINGLE 1.44M floppy?"

> My question is -- can this be done with Linux?

> Check out the cool QNX demo at http://www.qnx.com/iat/how.html

Then again Linux isn't made for this sort of work, not yet. Check
out ELKS as it is aiming to make Linux this small.

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Quote:>> My question is -- can this be done with Linux?
>> Check out the cool QNX demo at http://www.veryComputer.com/
>I've actually been hacking at this for a while, and I've admitted
>defeat. The best I managed was 2 floppies, and I couldn't get the
>windowing system or web server on that. However, I did get an nfs
>suite, internet dialup, a text-based browser (lynx) and some disk
>fixit tools. Plus it could read dos, vfat, iso9660, joliet, smbfs
>and ext2 partitions, so on balance I think it's better than QNX's
>1 disk wonder :-)
>Then again Linux isn't made for this sort of work, not yet. Check
>out ELKS as it is aiming to make Linux this small.

pppd, lynx-2.2, telnet (gotta have telnet!).  For the server,
an extremely cut-down apache.  Umm.  It doesn't really look all
that *ce you've slashed away at things.

Look up "Linux-Lite" for a bare-essentials setup.  It'll run,
one floppy (1200k), in 896k.  It doesn't have networking though
which is what we're after.

You _could_ do a compressed filesystem floppy with 2.0.X, but
it's need gobs of memory for the ramdisk.  No good if you're on
a 4 meg system.

Lots to mull, at any rate.

Quote:>Then again Linux isn't made for this sort of work, not yet. Check
>out ELKS as it is aiming to make Linux this small.

  Kenton> There is a QNX-like system called VSTA.  I don't have
  Kenton> references on hand, but it is GPL'd.

Available on ftp.cygnus.com somewhere under /pub/embedded.

Quote:>QNX has an excellent single floppy demo[...]

>My question is -- can this be done with Linux?

        http://olymp.wu-wien.ac.at/usr/h93/h9301726/dlx.html

Which has an amazingly functional Linux system on a single floppy.

- Sam

--

Hmmm. (tm)

I think I'll get to work on that 1.0.9 "Lite" based thing.
We need ppp in the kernel (may as well compress the kernel,
disk space is our biggest priority) and a _good_ ppp script.

I'll try to get it all into 1200k: a further challenge.

Quote:> >Then again Linux isn't made for this sort of work, not yet. Check
> >out ELKS as it is aiming to make Linux this small.
> How much of Linux do you lose when you run ELKS?

But if I wanted to shove a motherboard in a machine with an easy to use
GUI, no harddrive
and minimal ram and net connectivity I'd look closely at QNX. BTW do you
offer  diskless booting? Saves $35 bux and gets rid of floppy failures.
=)

Quote:>> >Then again Linux isn't made for this sort of work, not yet. Check
>> >out ELKS as it is aiming to make Linux this small.

>> How much of Linux do you lose when you run ELKS?

>HURD might be some competition but Linux as it is, doesn't try to
>compete with your
>system. Considering that I can array a dozen or so of the oldy moldy
>386s I have and get
>a couple of Mflops out of it with Linux I'm happy.

Quote:>But if I wanted to shove a motherboard in a machine with an easy to use
>GUI, no harddrive
>and minimal ram and net connectivity I'd look closely at QNX. BTW do you
>offer  diskless booting? Saves $35 bux and gets rid of floppy failures.

   If you're using your gui and browser as a selling point for QNX, I
   can see the point of it (though these days I don't see that sort of
   bundling working for anyone except Microsoft), but it doesn't say
   anything about the operating system.  (What it does say is that X is
   bloated, but, shoot, is there anyone in the computer-using world that
   doesn't already know that?)

   I'd suspect that, sizewise, the kernel you put on that disk and the
   kernels I put on my (uncompressed recovery floppies) are about the
   same size. (I don't know, of course, but my recovery floppy kernel
   is a shade under 400k[1], and it supports:
        the obligatory two load formats for Linux/x86 (a.out and elf)
        floppy drives
        ide drives
        ide cd-roms
        ramdisks (big surprise, eh? ;-)
        scsi disks
        scsi cd-roms
        advansys, adaptec 1542, buslogic, and ncr8xx controllers
        ext2, proc, iso9660 filesystems)

   The kernel and the necessary a.out runtime library eat 850k of the
   approximately 1380k I can fit onto a repair floppy. If I used
   compressed floppy images, I could probably fit about 1800k onto the
   floppy after reserving space for the kernel.  450k of that is the
   library, and I'd need another 1400k for a vga X server.  Lesse, that
   would leave me approximately -50k to fit a web server[2], browser,
   gui, 200k of html documents, and the necessary scaffolding to support
   all of it.

   Make no mistake, that's a pretty spiffy demo you've got there.  But I
   don't even notice the operating system because I'm too busy drooling
   over the captive gui.

                 ____
   david parsons \bi/ I might be able to do it using MGR, but there are no
                  \/                           modern web browsers for MGR.

   [1: 2.0.28; the 1.2.13 version is about 100k less :-(]
   [2: even if I used thttpd (~60k), I'd still have trouble fitting it in.]

On 13 Sep 1997 10:59:46 -0700,

Quote:>                 ____
>   david parsons \bi/ I might be able to do it using MGR, but there are no
>                  \/                           modern web browsers for MGR.
>   [1: 2.0.28; the 1.2.13 version is about 100k less :-(]
>   [2: even if I used thttpd (~60k), I'd still have trouble fitting it in.]

Use libc-4.6.27 "lite" if possible.  Compile everything with -O2 -s -N, and
strip them after (you can sometimes gain a 1k block by removing that 4 bytes
-s leaves).  The shell - an old "sh" that's under 100k.  lynx-2.2.  And so on.

Also, using the minix filesystem on the floppy will gain you a few blocks as
well.

I'm still in the thinking-about-it stage myself, but I think I'll pull out
/dev/loop soon and have a go...

I'm leaving out the html server, by the way.  And it'll be text based.
As I see it, the toughest part will be writing a droolproof ppp dialup
script.  I've written a nearly droolproof ppp setup script, though, so
maybe.

Quote:> but it doesn't say
>   anything about the operating system.  (What it does say is that X is
>   bloated, but, shoot, is there anyone in the computer-using world that
>   doesn't already know that?)

Quote:>   I'd suspect that, sizewise, the kernel you put on that disk and the
>   kernels I put on my (uncompressed recovery floppies) are about the
>   same size. (I don't know, of course, but my recovery floppy kernel
>   is a shade under 400k[1], and it supports:

Quote:>    the obligatory two load formats for Linux/x86 (a.out and elf)
>    floppy drives

Quote:>    ide drives

Quote:>    ide cd-roms
>    ramdisks (big surprise, eh? ;-)
>    scsi disks
>    scsi cd-roms
>    advansys, adaptec 1542,

Quote:> buslogic, and ncr8xx controllers

Quote:>    ext2, proc,
> iso9660 filesystems)

Quote:>   The kernel and the necessary a.out runtime library eat 850k of the

Quote:>   approximately 1380k I can fit onto a repair floppy. If I used
>   compressed floppy images, I could probably fit about 1800k onto the
>   floppy after reserving space for the kernel.  450k of that is the
>   library, and I'd need another 1400k for a vga X server.  Lesse, that
>   would leave me approximately -50k to fit a web server[2], browser,
>   gui, 200k of html documents, and the necessary scaffolding to support
>   all of it.

Quote:>   Make no mistake, that's a pretty spiffy demo you've got there.  But I
>   don't even notice the operating system because I'm too busy drooling
>   over the captive gui.

Quote:>   david parsons \bi/ I might be able to do it using MGR, but there are no
>                  \/                           modern web browsers for MGR.

Quote:>   [1: 2.0.28; the 1.2.13 version is about 100k less :-(]
>   [2: even if I used thttpd (~60k), I'd still have trouble fitting it in.]

--

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