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An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

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Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#11

Post by muppetman »

I wonder why it needs 20MB minimum. Back in the day linux 2.0.33 would boot happily into a GUI and everything on an 8MB machine.

Or maybe I misremember... I know my machine at the time got upgraded to 24MB so maybe it was that machine I was running.

Anyway it's neat this can still be done.

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#12

Post by s0rce »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #2

I remember around 2002 running my home router without any hdd on fli4l - a single floppy linux router distribution. I slept in the same room as the router was, hence I wanted a solution without a noisy hdd from that era.

I used Freesco another single floppy distribution around that time. I tihnk I had in on old pentium 66 MHz

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#15

Post by walrus01 »

muppetman wrote: post #11

I wonder why it needs 20MB minimum. Back in the day linux 2.0.33 would boot happily into a GUI and everything on an 8MB machine. Or maybe I misremember... I know my machine at the time got upgraded to 24MB so maybe it was that machine I was running. Anyway it's neat this can still be done.

I'm going to guess from the size of the kernel, since for distribution it has to be a fairly 'generic' kernel with just about every driver built into it. If one were to compile a custom 6.14 kernel for a specific hardware target with only 1 model of NIC (3c509b for example), etc, it could be a lot smaller.

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#16

Post by d3Xt3r »

smilespray wrote: post #9
dddw wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember qnx

Full network stack and a web server on a 1.44MB floppy!

And a Javascript capable HTML4 browser, and a decent-looking and performant GUI desktop too.

It's a shame QNX (desktop) died, used to be way more performant and stable compared to Linux or anything else back in the day.

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#17

Post by kjs3 »

muppetman wrote: post #11

I wonder why it needs 20MB minimum. Back in the day linux 2.0.33 would boot happily into a GUI and everything on an 8MB machine. Or maybe I misremember... I know my machine at the time got upgraded to 24MB so maybe it was that machine I was running. Anyway it's neat this can still be done.

I think you could run 2.0 + X11 in 4MB in a pinch. I know I ran 2.2 + X11 in 5MB on a cast-off i386SX; tight but useable. If I recall right, 2.0 & 2.2 would run in 2MB without X11 (but a GUI like MGR might fit). 8MB was pretty good and 16MB was positively spacious.

Edit: Add: 2MB/4MB boot with a stripped down kernel, not generic.

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#18

Post by d3Xt3r »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #2

I remember around 2002 running my home router without any hdd on fli4l - a single floppy linux router distribution. I slept in the same room as the router was, hence I wanted a solution without a noisy hdd from that era.

There was also tomsrtbt[1], which was a staple in my "rescue" floppy collection. Along with the QNX floppy[2], which came in super handy when using a cyber café or a friend's PC, and you wanted to avoid all the keyloggers and malware.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt

[2] http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#19

Post by dcminter »

muppetman wrote: post #11

I wonder why it needs 20MB minimum. Back in the day linux 2.0.33 would boot happily into a GUI and everything on an 8MB machine. Or maybe I misremember... I know my machine at the time got upgraded to 24MB so maybe it was that machine I was running. Anyway it's neat this can still be done.

You could run X11 in 4Mb at one point, although I rather wished I didn't.

Re: An Embedded Linux on a Single Floppy

#20

Post by st_goliath »

This project has a website that was previously posted on HN[1], I (unsuccessfully) tried to boot it on an actual 486 machine[2], as the site boasts about supporting that.

The version of the SYSLINUX bootloader that it uses had a bug in the fallback path if E820 memory information is not available from the BIOS, and the BIOS on my machine indeed does not support it, or E801 for that matter[3].

I have not gotten around to further testing and fixing the actual issue in SYSLINUX yet (also one of the RAM sticks has sadly developed a parity issue, so I'm stuck at 16M for now). However, I did manage to dig up a newer 486 machine[4][5]. From some testing just this weekend, the BIOS on that one does support INT 15h, AX=E820. I'll have to dig up more memory, but I'm looking forward to another round of trying to get this to boot on the actual hardware, once again :-)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866544

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46873814

[3] https://imgur.com/a/GCG9jO7

[4] https://imgur.com/a/am486dx4-retrotank-VUOTahf

[5] https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/zida-4dps

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