OS for embedded PC

I need an OS (linux distro / BSD) for an embedded x86 PC with 512MBs of RAM, 2GBs of HDD (SSD / CF), and Intel onboard Graphics with VGA output.
Which OS should I use to have small boot time, and also framebuffer output at about 800x600 resolution or more?
Is it possible to have optimizations according to the hardware, to have liter OS with faster boot time?

Well what processor is embeded? That will affect available options.

Originally Posted by ericson007 Well what processor is embeded? That will affect available options.

Intel Atom dual core 1.8 GHz

That processor, you can use any distro supporting x86 which is pretty much whatever your favourite flavor is.

I would recommend arch, slack, rhel based or debian.

Originally Posted by ericson007 That processor, you can use any distro supporting x86 which is pretty much whatever your favourite flavor is. I would recommend arch, slack, rhel based or debian.

But I need a lite and fast one!

Consider NetBSD:

http://netbsd.org/

Arch slack and those were mentioned because you can go very minimal with them, same with the bsds.

You will start running into issues with ubuntu and other distros like that.

There are numerous Linux distros geared to small size. I've had good experiences with TinyCore Linux, and use a pared-down and customized version that comes in at 11MB root filesystem. Fast boot times on x86 PCs are hard to accomplish, as the BIOS usually takes quite some time to start loading any OS. I have a shell prompt in under 5 seconds after the PC PXE loader starts to load an OS on a low-end Atom PC.

Originally Posted by theNbomr There are numerous Linux distros geared to small size. I've had good experiences with TinyCore Linux, and use a pared-down and customized version that comes in at 11MB root filesystem. Fast boot times on x86 PCs are hard to accomplish, as the BIOS usually takes quite some time to start loading any OS. I have a shell prompt in under 5 seconds after the PC PXE loader starts to load an OS on a low-end Atom PC.

I need to customized the distro. I need followings:

1. X Server
2. shutdown when power button pressed
3. Oracle JRE(latest)
4. Make the whole system readonly except shome directories.
5. hide mouse

But TinyCore or similar distros does not have enough docs (eg to hide mouse or shutdown by pressing power button, etc).
Could you please give me some docs or links?

Learning on the fly is part of OS customization. There are simply far too many possible customizations for anyone to anticipate and document them all. Many such customizatons are atypical. Perhaps the customizations you need to perform can be gleaned from other OS docs and then applied to the target OS that you choose.