Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003) • Hacker News Board

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#111

Post by npteljes » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 9:58 PM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #108

npteljes wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this same hacker spirit in the FOSS world. Windows just struggles so much to be independent from its user, that I realized that I have to give up. I hope that many did the same and now nurture their talent where at least they don't have to swim dead against the current.

I found this same hacker spirit in the FOSS world. Unfortunately that "hacker spirit" seems to end at "must have the source code"; the same can't be said of those customising Windows and such, who definitely didn't have the source but succeeded nonetheless.

How do you mean? Not enough hacker spirit in the FOSS world?

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#112

Post by donatj » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 10:04 PM UTC

I misread that "Windows 98 that boots and runs under SMB" and was fully expecting a Windows 98 thin client or something of the sort.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#113

Post by userbinator » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 10:25 PM UTC

npteljes wrote: post #111

userbinator wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this same hacker spirit in the FOSS world. Unfortunately that "hacker spirit" seems to end at "must have the source code"; the same can't be said of those customising Windows and such, who definitely didn't have the source but succeeded nonetheless.

How do you mean? Not enough hacker spirit in the FOSS world?

I meant that they seem lost without source[1], while the Windows hackers don't need source.

[1] I remember someone being very surprised that I patched the binary of a FOSS application, instead of changing the source and compiling it --- the former took a few minutes, the latter would've taken far more time (to get all the dependencies, build system, etc.) and possibly introduced other unwanted changes.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#114

Post by knightofmars » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:09 PM UTC

azalemeth wrote: post #24

In the days when Windows was easier to crack, it was not uncommon to find very small, specialised ISOs of "miniature windows" designed specifically for running a certain task -- typically some form of data-recovery app, system repair/maintenance or similar -- and they would fit on a single CD-R, have almost no system requirements, and, if I recall successfully, be bloody useful to my school's computer administrators…

This was the way back in the early 2000s. We also had auto boot USB keys that upon boot would format the main drive and start listening for the Ghost server to send a command to image the drive. I was often amazed at how quickly you could format an entire computer lab.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#115

Post by zandorg » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

XP had no modern browser... Until now!

    http://www.mypal-browser.org

800,000 users can't be wrong (out of 240 million XP users worldwide).

This project is important because Firefox stopped working on XP 4 years ago - and you can't do things like captchas without a modern browser.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#116

Post by babypuncher » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

dleslie wrote: post #59

xav_authentique wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for Windows 2000? NT kernel with the classic Windows interface. It ran pretty well on Windows 98 machines and was extremely stable.

So long as you didn't play games. 2000 meant abandoning the vast majority of your PC game library, early on.

I ran Windows 2000 in high school and never had trouble running any of my games. That said, I didn't have any DOS games in my library, which I'm guessing is what you are referring to.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#117

Post by babypuncher » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #63

IntelMiner wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit they remove Windows Update? That sounds like a great way to slide into madness as software breaks or malware rears its head

Eh, honestly I usually have Windows Update disabled anyway because it causes much more headache than it is worth. Occasionally, once a year at most, I re-enable and update and it has about a 50/50 chance of not making me wish I'd just reinstalled instead.

I only ever have trouble with Windows Update on machines that go months or years without updates. The last two major feature updates installed in minutes like an every day bug fix or security patch.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#118

Post by Teknoman117 » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

desktopninja wrote: post #35

My goto to tool to get WindowsXP down to ~100MB (drivers mostly): https://www.nliteos.com/

I had that mixed up with ntlite in my head (which will do windows 10).

I used this to make a custom Win 10 install for my first gen threadripper desktop. There were major teething issues since I bought it on launch day. Specifically, the Intel wifi driver that was bundled in the windows installer at that point would blue-screen on threadripper the moment it loaded. Intel had an updated driver available, but the bad driver was literally in the windows installer. I couldn't actually get to first boot. Used ntlite to make a custom windows installer where the only change was the updated intel wifi driver.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#119

Post by Teknoman117 » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:32 PM UTC

marcodiego wrote: post #37

I remember how live distributions became popular among technicians in early 2000's. The main advantages they had over windows were could more easily pack lots of software, there was nothing to care about license and popular hardware usually worked out of the box without needing to install specific drivers. If anyone is impressed by these 5MB, please remember this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28515025

I used to keep a 2.88 MB floppy with tomsrtbt on it.

Re: Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

#120

Post by babypuncher » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 11:34 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #97

IntelMiner wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds decidedly self-inflicted. Windows 10 (minus its LTSC variants) are designed for a much quicker update cycle. "jumping" from versions literally a year apart sounds like a great way to break things

It is usually better to chose when to risk breaking stuff then having some auto updater running.

Windows updates that actually break things are exceptionally rare these days, and rolling them back is usually pretty easy. All my Windows environments live on the slow ring and I've not once encountered a problem caused by a bad update.

Conversely, I've had Manjaro updates break my GRUB config twice in the last year, which is a pretty daunting problem to fix for 99.9% of end users.

I don't expect the small team at Manjaro to do a better job of this than a trillion dollar company, I just find the reputation WU has these days puzzling. Deferring updates for extended periods of time seems to consistently cause my users far more problems than it supposedly solves.