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Thing to consider - how many drivers did that stripped down version include? Windows, at the least, still dominates in overall driver/hardware support. From t

Thing to consider - how many drivers did that stripped down version include? Windows, at the least, still dominates in overall driver/hardware support. From the article, a "smallish kernel + xyz" is hard to compare with what exactly is in "MinWin". I suspect the fact that http://www.c64web.com http://www.c64web.com runs on an unmodified Commodore 64 blows your "smallish kernel" out of the water. My point? You can make assumptions, but you need to know fully what your kernel and other bits include.

sethrin 14y ago
An 8MB linux kernel is not really all that small. These instructions [0] look like they produce a kernel weighing in at about 800kb, without any significant hacking. A web server occupies another couple of MB. The TinyCore Linux distribution [1] will get you a GUI desktop for 12MB. The c64web site runs on Contiki OS, which will actually work on less capable hardware. It's pretty impressive, really.[2] I would be tempted to say that it doesn't really compare to MinWin or Linux, but I'm still busy being amazed by it. I really don't know what you mean by Windows having greater hardware support, I suppose for certain definitions of "windows" and "support" that could be true. Maybe if you count all versions of windows, and restrict your hardware to common CPU archs, and count drivers that aren't built into the kernel. Honestly I have no idea how you'd come up with numbers either way, but my impression was that Linux can be made to run on pretty much any general-purpose CPU. Perhaps you'll provide some data on the matter. [0][pdf] http://www.ti.com/general/docs/lit/getliterature.tsp?literatureNumber=spraah2a&fileType=pdf http://www.ti.com/general/docs/lit/getliterature.tsp?literat... [1] http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html [2] http://www.contiki-os.org/ http://www.contiki-os.org/
- hp50g 14y ago
  Better x86/x64 support I'd imagine. Despite being a rabid Linux fanboy, I've had way more driver availability issues with Linux over the years than windows. To be honest, windows just pretty much works these days.
- lttlrck 14y ago
  Linux power management pales in comparison to Windows. As much as a love Linux it pains me to see my notebooks battery life drop from 5 hours to 1.5, and thats with significant tweaking.
  - rbanffy 14y ago
    My cheap Dell v131 goes about 5 hours with minimal tweaking (turn off keyboard backlight, low brightness setting). What kind of machine did you get?
    - andrewflnr 14y ago
      I'm pretty sure my Arch Linux install actually gets better battery life than Win7 on my laptop, also with minimal tweaking. Thinkpad, FWIW.

sethrin 14y ago

An 8MB linux kernel is not really all that small. These instructions [0] look like they produce a kernel weighing in at about 800kb, without any significant hacking. A web server occupies another couple of MB. The TinyCore Linux distribution [1] will get you a GUI desktop for 12MB. The c64web site runs on Contiki OS, which will actually work on less capable hardware. It's pretty impressive, really.[2] I would be tempted to say that it doesn't really compare to MinWin or Linux, but I'm still busy being amazed by it. I really don't know what you mean by Windows having greater hardware support, I suppose for certain definitions of "windows" and "support" that could be true. Maybe if you count all versions of windows, and restrict your hardware to common CPU archs, and count drivers that aren't built into the kernel. Honestly I have no idea how you'd come up with numbers either way, but my impression was that Linux can be made to run on pretty much any general-purpose CPU. Perhaps you'll provide some data on the matter. [0][pdf] http://www.ti.com/general/docs/lit/getliterature.tsp?literatureNumber=spraah2a&fileType=pdf http://www.ti.com/general/docs/lit/getliterature.tsp?literat... [1] http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html [2] http://www.contiki-os.org/ http://www.contiki-os.org/

hp50g 14y ago
Better x86/x64 support I'd imagine. Despite being a rabid Linux fanboy, I've had way more driver availability issues with Linux over the years than windows. To be honest, windows just pretty much works these days.
lttlrck 14y ago
Linux power management pales in comparison to Windows. As much as a love Linux it pains me to see my notebooks battery life drop from 5 hours to 1.5, and thats with significant tweaking.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  My cheap Dell v131 goes about 5 hours with minimal tweaking (turn off keyboard backlight, low brightness setting). What kind of machine did you get?
  - andrewflnr 14y ago
    I'm pretty sure my Arch Linux install actually gets better battery life than Win7 on my laptop, also with minimal tweaking. Thinkpad, FWIW.