3 ms·
“Floppydistros” were a thing back in the day. When i was 12 or 13 in the very early 2000s i tried to download something called “coyote linux” (from sourceforge
by znpy 4mo ago
“Floppydistros” were a thing back in the day.
When i was 12 or 13 in the very early 2000s i tried to download something called “coyote linux” (from sourceforge iirc) and boot it on an internet cafe pc because i really wanted to try this linux thing.
But i was very nooby and of course it mostly didn’t go anywhere. I have vague memories of maybe getting it to boot, getting a shell and then not know what to do with it.
Fun times :)
- dddw 4mo agoI remember qnx
- smilespray 4mo agoFull network stack and a web server on a 1.44MB floppy!
- d3Xt3r 4mo agoAnd 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.
- userbinator 4mo agoThe problem is it wasn't really compatible with anything else, at a time when DOS/Windows and Unix-likes were the most common.
- smilespray 4mo agoIt was compatible with the radio and crypto equipment aboard my coast guard ship!
- w84death 4mo agoIsn't it still alive in automobile/infodesks?
- d3Xt3r 4mo agoThe embedded version is, yeah. I was referring to their PC version though, which came with a full-fledged DE called Photon microGUI[1]. It was extremely responsive and could multitask without any stuttering, even on ancient hardware like the Pentium II - something wich other operating systems struggled with for a long time. In fact I would say Linux didn't "officially" resolve the issue until they introduced the EEVDF scheduler with kernel 6.6 in 2023. [1] https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.5.0SP1.update/com.qnx.doc.neutrino_user_guide/using_photon.html https://www.qnx.com/developers/docs/6.5.0SP1.update/com.qnx....
- dredmorbius 4mo agoDo you recall which browser? BrowseX, written mostly in Tcl/Tk, was included in one microdistro. Probably LNX-BBC, per Wikipedia. <https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/BrowseX https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/page/BrowseX> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card#Operation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootable_business_card#Operati...>
- w84death 4mo agoQNX is to this day the biggest "floppy" thing I ever saw. I would love to have a modern recreation of it.
- enneff 4mo agoI used to run tomsrtbt (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt) from a floppy on an old 486 hooked up to a monitor and keyboard for use as a terminal. Was nice and silent, pretty convenient to be able to just turn the screen on to check irc or whatever.