Fastest Bootable Linux-Distro Ever for a Syslinux boot?

patrick295767 · 07-01-2015, 11:55 PM

Hello,

Aim:
The goal is to load/boot Linux directly from the first fat16 partition that is on the harddisk, very fast (probably with a busybox maybe) in 1-5 seconds, to allow to edit a file (terminal editor such as nano or MS Edit) which is located on the FAT16 /dev/sda1.

The PC machine has a /dev/sda1 with the vfat16 with syslinux on it. The /dev/sda2 has linux, and sda3 for the swap.

An image of a tiny linux as img maybe booting the /dev/sda1 would be maybe possible.

It would be simple to use the syslinux to get a menu which tells
1: Tiny Linux for /dev/sda1 FAT16 (/home/user/notes)
2: Normal boot (/dev/sda2, vmlinuz)

Would have some ideas?

Greetings
Pat

Code:

default latest
timeout 15 
prompt 1
label latest
    kernel vmlinuz
    append initrd=initrd.gz root=/dev/sda2

Keruskerfuerst · 07-02-2015, 12:54 AM

etc/fstab?

pan64 · 07-02-2015, 02:10 AM

fastest? I think you need appropriate hardware for that, not a distro. You need to minimize the number of devices (also I think swap is not really necessary, but you know) and boot system into memory. Finally suspend it and instead of rebooting just wake it up. (That file should be available on a fast device)

fatmac · 07-02-2015, 05:33 AM

Quote:

1-5 seconds

To get that sort of speed you would be coming out of a suspended O/S.

Dos would boot in about that sort of time, but not a unix like system, as it has to check what hardware is available & load the relevant drivers, before giving you a VT.

TobiSGD · 07-02-2015, 09:25 AM

1. Use a customized kernel that only includes drivers for the needed hardware. Not the hardware that is present, but only the hardware that is explicitly needed for the job. In your case that might be nothing more than a generic video driver, the driver for the storage controller and filesystem in use and a keyboard driver. Built all the needed drivers into the kernel, not as modules.
2. Create your own distro, using Busybox. Only compile stuff into Busybox that you really need. Busybox comes with a feature reduced clone of the vi text editor, if that is not enough you will have to built libraries and the text editor of your choice, too.
3. May not be necessary, but for single purpose systems like these I usually use the kernel's feature to attach the root filesystem to the kernel. This may help because it avoids as much disk access while booting as possible.

In general, keep the system as minimal as possible to keep loading times short.

patrick295767 · 07-02-2015, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

.
2. Create your own distro, using Busybox. Only compile stuff into Busybox that ...

I have my own distro, it is called Tinydebianix -- hey hey

It rocks and actually it uses syslinux menu. I had to make my own distro since the debian iso hybrid is pretty/quite buggy (still today) on modern hardwares. However, I do not have busybox on it, and I am not looking (due to important lack of time).

I guess that a very light iso would be fine, I could bought it directly with the syslinux (as live iso image).

jefro · 07-02-2015, 03:56 PM

Might peek at webconverger, not sure how they got it so fast. Maybe OpenElec too.

No matter how you go, the size of the kernal and init will be key to this along with parallel loading of any services.

One of the benefits to a live image is compression usually. It is a compressed filesystem.

Not sure why you want to use Syslinux exactly. A different choice may be to use LILO.