OSDev.org

• Uses much less RAM. Comparison: Windows at minimum has to use 1024 MB, while you can easily put that to under 64-128 MB here.
  Much less space taken. Comparison: Even the most tiny OS with lots of features (CorePlus at 106MB) is bigger than most ones here:

Ghost OS at 60 MB,
Toaru OS at 24 MB (10MB micro distribution),
Nutoak OS 0.1 at 232 KB (in a 1440KB IMA file),
etc.

• Lower system specifications. Comparison:

Windows: 1 GB (32b RAM), 2 GB (64b RAM), 16GB (32b hard disk space), 20 GB (64b hard disk space), generally 1 GHz or faster (CPU speed).
All OSDev OS's i know at most: 256 MB, 100 MB, 200 MHz.

• Lots more customization.
  More open-source.
  Lightweight on resources.
  Lots more environments (have you ever developed a OS for the MegaDrive, or the GameBoy, major companies in 2016? the closest i have seen is a embedded version of Windows on a failed console called the Dreamcast.)
  Old computers run it quite nicely, instead of literally crashing on a print string to CMD window routine in Windows.
  etc.

If you can write an OS that runs games, plays media, networks, ... (insert your particular hobby-horse here) as well as Windows does you'll be going some.

NunoLava1998 wrote:

• Lots more customization.
  More open-source.
  Lots more environments (have you ever developed a OS for the MegaDrive, or the GameBoy, major companies in 2016? the closest i have seen is a embedded version of Windows on a failed console called the Dreamcast.)
  Old computers run it quite nicely, instead of literally crashing on a print string to CMD window routine in Windows.
  etc.

If you can beat Linux on any of those points you'll be going some.

NunoLava1998 wrote:

• Uses much less RAM. Comparison: Windows at minimum has to use 1024 MB, while you can easily put that to under 64-128 MB here.
  Much less space taken. Comparison: Even the most tiny OS with lots of features (CorePlus at 106MB) is bigger than most ones here:

Comparing apples and oranges?

Ghost OS at 60 MB,
Toaru OS at 24 MB (10MB micro distribution),
Nutoak OS 0.1 at 232 KB (in a 1440KB IMA file),
etc.

Which of those would you want to use as your only operating system?

Kevin wrote:

NunoLava1998 wrote:

• Uses much less RAM. Comparison: Windows at minimum has to use 1024 MB, while you can easily put that to under 64-128 MB here.
  Much less space taken. Comparison: Even the most tiny OS with lots of features (CorePlus at 106MB) is bigger than most ones here:

Comparing apples and oranges?

Ghost OS at 60 MB,
Toaru OS at 24 MB (10MB micro distribution),
Nutoak OS 0.1 at 232 KB (in a 1440KB IMA file),
etc.

Which of those would you want to use as your only operating system?

Toaru OS, which is close enough. Even the ToaruOS developer says he's developing a browser, which is already enough for me to go there, even if Flash is not there, or Javascri- any browser without Javascript is terrible. It most likely has javascript.

You can compare ToaruOS:

and now CorePlus:

Hi,


You also compared operating systems originated from here with only Windows, which is known for its high memory and CPU requirements.

Most Linux distributions can run on less than 512 MiB of memory, and several can run on less than 256 MiB. And, yes, I'm positive it could be done even better.


Regards,
glauxosdever

glauxosdever wrote:Hi,


You also compared operating systems originated from here with only Windows, which is known for its high memory and CPU requirements.

Most Linux distributions can run on less than 512 MiB of memory, and several can run on less than 256 MiB. And, yes, I'm positive it could be done even better.


Regards,
glauxosdever

Yep, Arch Linux is at 128 MB (higher than most), and Core (the closest Linux distribution to a OSDev OS you can get) at 28 MB. TinyCore, the graphical version of Core, is 46 MB. CorePlus, is 46 MB, as CorePlus is simply the installer of TinyCore with a few additional features.

NunoLava1998 wrote:Toaru OS, which is close enough.

Oh really? Maybe try and use only ToaruOS for a day and then you can report back tomorrow how it went.

To avoid misunderstandings, I have great respect for Kevin Lange's work, and it's probably one of the OSes that are closer to actually usable than most others, but no, I don't think it's quite there (and I don't think he thinks it is).

Also note that the 24 MB image doesn't include a browser, a compiler or even just an editor. This live CD is for testing and playing with the core system, not for actually using it. If you actually added the additional things you need from a real OS, the image would become quite a bit larger.

NunoLava1998 wrote: Toaru OS, which is close enough.

So we can assume that you used Toaru OS to make that post?

With how cheap ram and storage space are these days, none of the hobby OS's present a real alternative on desktops.
On an embedded environment where space is at a premium, I can understand that argument. All of my desktops/laptops have 16gb of ram and 2-3 TB of disk space. Besides, you want your OS to in general use as much ram as possible, otherwise you're losing performance to disk reads, etc.

crunch wrote:With how cheap ram and storage space are these days, none of the hobby OS's present a real alternative on desktops.
On an embedded environment where space is at a premium, I can understand that argument. All of my desktops/laptops have 16gb of ram and 2-3 TB of disk space. Besides, you want your OS to in general use as much ram as possible, otherwise you're losing performance to disk reads, etc.

Agreed. I think that is a very common misconception. An OS needs to be able to use as much ram as possible, while still being able to quickly meet the needs of applications it's executing. But beside memory consumption arguments, none of the hobby OS's have enough software to make them capable as daily drivers, so a comparison of a hobby OS to Windows or any other mainstream OS is invalid for the moment. In comparison to the actual production OS's out there, most of our projects are just like very fancy toys that are almost useful.

crunch wrote:Besides, you want your OS to in general use as much ram as possible, otherwise you're losing performance to disk reads, etc.

There's a difference between the maximum amount of RAM that an OS can utilise and the minimum amount that it needs in order to operate correctly. You want the OS to make good use of all the available RAM, but if there isn't much RAM available then an OS that requires less RAM to run is probably better. You also want the OS to make the most efficient use of RAM possible, so that you can do the most with the RAM in your computer. So an OS that "uses less RAM" probably manages RAM more efficiently (thus requiring less RAM in order to do the same things as another OS might require) or doesn't require as much RAM to function (but can still make full use of the available RAM).

hgoel wrote:

crunch wrote:With how cheap ram and storage space are these days, none of the hobby OS's present a real alternative on desktops.
On an embedded environment where space is at a premium, I can understand that argument. All of my desktops/laptops have 16gb of ram and 2-3 TB of disk space. Besides, you want your OS to in general use as much ram as possible, otherwise you're losing performance to disk reads, etc.

Agreed. I think that is a very common misconception. An OS needs to be able to use as much ram as possible, while still being able to quickly meet the needs of applications it's executing. But beside memory consumption arguments, none of the hobby OS's have enough software to make them capable as daily drivers, so a comparison of a hobby OS to Windows or any other mainstream OS is invalid for the moment. In comparison to the actual production OS's out there, most of our projects are just like very fancy toys that are almost useful.

I also want for someone to power up the old GT100 with 8 CUDA Cores in my PC and put 128 GB of RAM with that, then try to play any game.



That thing doesn't even play Minecraft under 30 fps.

iansjack wrote:

NunoLava1998 wrote: Toaru OS, which is close enough.

So we can assume that you used Toaru OS to make that post?

Toaru OS doesn't have an installer yet and the browser is still in early alpha.

Kevin wrote:

NunoLava1998 wrote:Toaru OS, which is close enough.

Oh really? Maybe try and use only ToaruOS for a day and then you can report back tomorrow how it went.

To avoid misunderstandings, I have great respect for Kevin Lange's work, and it's probably one of the OSes that are closer to actually usable than most others, but no, I don't think it's quite there (and I don't think he thinks it is).

Also note that the 24 MB image doesn't include a browser, a compiler or even just an editor. This live CD is for testing and playing with the core system, not for actually using it. If you actually added the additional things you need from a real OS, the image would become quite a bit larger.

Oh.
What i was trying to illustrate is that this is how much RAM a normal system here that is quite usable uses compared to the not extremely tiny linux distros (like core, which is a terminal environment that is smaller than firefox and probably uses less RAM than firefox) which are not friendly.
What i'm trying to illustrate is:

NunoLava1998 wrote:

iansjack wrote:

NunoLava1998 wrote: Toaru OS, which is close enough.

So we can assume that you used Toaru OS to make that post?

Toaru OS doesn't have an installer yet and the browser is still in early alpha.

So "good enough" was the usual b.s.