Gave up on Windows for LinuxMint

[OVERKILL]

I see-- I remember your unhappiness about FreeBSD ending because it served your needs well due to the lack of continuous updating.

Yeah, slower release cycle on a NAS product, was, IMHO, good. That product is now Linux-based, we'll see how that goes. So far, I have no complaints about the performance of the updated product, but would have preferred it stayed on FreeBSD.

Sounds like your approach of just installing a meta-package of KDE solves the problem I was dealing with. However, not sure I would have hit upon that solution as I don't care about release cycles, so it would probably make more sense for me to just install straight kubuntu.

I like being on the latest major release but not when it's first out, and for the "server" version of the product, that's a slower release cycle than for LTS desktop, even though they are based on the same major release. So, for example, when I was running 22.04.x, when 24.04 was released, server installs were not prompted to upgrade. It wasn't until a subsequent sub-release was put out, 24.04.01 or 24.04.02 or something, I can't remember exactly, that the prompt to move to the new release was presented. I was curious about this at the time and there was a document from Ubuntu that explained that this was intentionally slower for server.

And speaking of release cycles, the LTS versions of standard Ubuntu have 5 years of standard support, 10 years of extended support. Wouldn't that be enough?

I mean, technically they are the same versioning cycle, as I explained above, I just prefer the prolonged release cadence of Server vs Desktop. But ultimately you are using spins of the same core product. Would it have been enough? Sure. But I got something a BIT more lean (though I appreciate I've bloated it a bit with a DE, but this system has 64GB of RAM, I'm not super concerned there) that will be updated a BIT less frequently and go a bit longer between major releases.

(Note: I'm surprisingly unknowledgeable about computers, so understand that I'm in no way criticizing or judging-- just curious since you seem to be pretty expert in all this. Feel free to not respond if it would be too much work-- you don't owe me an education!)

Don't mind answering questions at all I've arguably got more xBSD experience than I do Linux, so definitely wouldn't call myself a Linux expert. While I do admin a few Linux servers, I don't generally do a lot of work on the platform as part of my regular job (ignoring working with Linux-based network equipment for the sake of this conversation). I've used Linux on and off since the mid 90's, but since I don't daily drive it, I have a tendency to not keep up with the changes as much as I would like to.

 

[Jim Rogers]

I like being on the latest major release but not when it's first out, and for the "server" version of the product, that's a slower release cycle than for LTS desktop, even though they are based on the same major release. So, for example, when I was running 22.04.x, when 24.04 was released, server installs were not prompted to upgrade. It wasn't until a subsequent sub-release was put out, 24.04.01 or 24.04.02 or something, I can't remember exactly, that the prompt to move to the new release was presented. I was curious about this at the time and there was a document from Ubuntu that explained that this was intentionally slower for server.

I hear you on this-- I turn the upgrade prompts off on my Ubuntu installs, and upgrade in June of every odd year. Since LTS upgrades come in April of every even year, it means that I don't upgrade until the new LTS has been out in the wild for 14 months.

I have zero issues with continuing on the older release as I upgrade when it is only 14 months into its 5-year support cycle. I'm likely not missing a thing.

The use-case for my Linux installs share with you (though for very different reasons) the trait of not needed anything fancy-- certainly not the latest whiz-bang apps or developments. For me the #1 priority is stability. I don't want anything that isn't fully developed and all the bugs worked out.

I mean, technically they are the same versioning cycle, as I explained above, I just prefer the prolonged release cadence of Server vs Desktop. But ultimately you are using spins of the same core product. Would it have been enough? Sure. But I got something a BIT more lean (though I appreciate I've bloated it a bit with a DE, but this system has 64GB of RAM, I'm not super concerned there) that will be updated a BIT less frequently and go a bit longer between major releases.

That makes sense, and it looks like you took a more reasonable course to get to your endpoint than I did, so that answers a lot of my questions as to your rationale.

Don't mind answering questions at all I've arguably got more xBSD experience than I do Linux, so definitely wouldn't call myself a Linux expert. While I do admin a few Linux servers, I don't generally do a lot of work on the platform as part of my regular job (ignoring working with Linux-based network equipment for the sake of this conversation). I've used Linux on and off since the mid 90's, but since I don't daily drive it, I have a tendency to not keep up with the changes as much as I would like to.

I really get that as I'm going through a similar experience-- I was an all-in Linux user from 1999-2015, but I had 1) a really bad upgrade experience that totally-- and I mean totally-- bricked one of my machines, and 2) a big change in my position at work that meant I had to convert to being a Windows user (which didn't end up nearly as bad as I thought it would).

With the demise of Win10 (I got the ESU for free, so I have it for one more year), I've got dual-boot Ubuntu up and running, and I'll be using the Ubuntu side as my full-time ride after Oct 2026 (the Win10 side will be kept for a few legacy Windows apps I need to use).

It's been a bit of a "blast from the past" getting back into Linux after such a long gap of zero usage, but much of it is coming back quickly.

I retired early and currently have no income until I decide to take SS, so I'm getting rid of all my subscriptions like MS365. In an attempt to avoid any traps into that ecosystem, I've been transitioning to an even more blast from the past-- believe it or not, I've actually gone back to MS-DOS! Seriously!

Try giving that a shot if you really want a time trip! It's certainly been a real trip for me as I was an all-in DOS user until 1999 (the year I switched to Linux).

 

[OVERKILL]

I hear you on this-- I turn the upgrade prompts off on my Ubuntu installs, and upgrade in June of every odd year. Since LTS upgrades come in April of every even year, it means that I don't upgrade until the new LTS has been out in the wild for 14 months.

I have zero issues with continuing on the older release as I upgrade when it is only 14 months into its 5-year support cycle. I'm likely not missing a thing.

The use-case for my Linux installs share with you (though for very different reasons) the trait of not needed anything fancy-- certainly not the latest whiz-bang apps or developments. For me the #1 priority is stability. I don't want anything that isn't fully developed and all the bugs worked out.




That makes sense, and it looks like you took a more reasonable course to get to your endpoint than I did, so that answers a lot of my questions as to your rationale.



I really get that as I'm going through a similar experience-- I was an all-in Linux user from 1999-2015, but I had 1) a really bad upgrade experience that totally-- and I mean totally-- bricked one of my machines, and 2) a big change in my position at work that meant I had to convert to being a Windows user (which didn't end up nearly as bad as I thought it would).

With the demise of Win10 (I got the ESU for free, so I have it for one more year), I've got dual-boot Ubuntu up and running, and I'll be using the Ubuntu side as my full-time ride after Oct 2026 (the Win10 side will be kept for a few legacy Windows apps I need to use).

It's been a bit of a "blast from the past" getting back into Linux after such a long gap of zero usage, but much of it is coming back quickly.

I retired early and currently have no income until I decide to take SS, so I'm getting rid of all my subscriptions like MS365. In an attempt to avoid any traps into that ecosystem, I've been transitioning to an even more blast from the past-- believe it or not, I've actually gone back to MS-DOS! Seriously!

Try giving that a shot if you really want a time trip! It's certainly been a real trip for me as I was an all-in DOS user until 1999 (the year I switched to Linux).

Funny you should mention that, I have a bit of a computer museum in my basement and my OG 486 (which I've posted about on here) that I upgraded with a ODP to a DX4/100 (stock, it's an SX/25) is running Windows 95C and is my DOS vintage gaming unit. I also have a Windows 3.11 486SLC/25 (TI) and a Windows 98SE box (Pentium 233 MMX) and a PII, PIII, P4 as well as a few vintage Macs.

I also have my original 8088 from when I was a kid, but I need to make some repairs to the motherboard. It's running MS-DOS 6.22.

 

[uc50ic4more]

Longer release cycles. The box is mainly used for torrents and since I was using transmission on MacOS, I could move the config and torrent files from one OS to the other.

Basically, I wanted the desktop experience, for ease of doing what I do with the box, but without the more frequent release cycle of the desktop OS. It's a 14 year old computer, it doesn't benefit from anything "latest and greatest" at this point.

Had no issues getting everything working with the UI, if you do apt install kubuntu-desktop you get the entire KDE desktop experience from kubuntu, there are only a couple of packages that don't get pulled in that self-resolve via the update manager, after you fix network-manager, lol, since server doesn't use NetworkManager OOTB, but it's relatively straightforward to make that change.

I wouldn't have taken this approach on a laptop, as I would expect that perhaps some stuff that a mobile computing platform needs wouldn't be installed or enabled. This is an old Mac Pro, which is basically a server/workstation platform:

Can't you just use the Desktop LTS release? I read your post a few posts ago but... They're based the same with the same release cadence, same support cycle and same packages.

 

[OVERKILL]

Can't you just use the Desktop LTS release? I read your post a few posts ago but... They're based the same with the same release cadence, same support cycle and same packages.

From what I recall reading (this was a while ago), the server version holds off on recommending the upgrade to the next release until 1 or 2 point releases happen, which is longer than with the desktop version, where it is pretty much immediate? I went down this rabbit hole with my Plex server, which was originally on 22.04, and when 24.04 came out, it wasn't presented as an option, so I looked into it and discovered this behaviour, and it being intentional.

That's my reasoning. And, that it's slightly less bloated, though I appreciate I've diminished that somewhat with the installation of a DE, lol.

Of course that could also be outdated, as I haven't used Ubuntu in a while Also, I know I said 22.04 to 24.04, but it may have been 20.04 to 22.04? It has been a hot minute.

 

[Jim Rogers]

Funny you should mention that, I have a bit of a computer museum in my basement and my OG 486 (which I've posted about on here) that I upgraded with a ODP to a DX4/100 (stock, it's an SX/25) is running Windows 95C and is my DOS vintage gaming unit. I also have a Windows 3.11 486SLC/25 (TI) and a Windows 98SE box (Pentium 233 MMX) and a PII, PIII, P4 as well as a few vintage Macs.

I also have my original 8088 from when I was a kid, but I need to make some repairs to the motherboard. It's running MS-DOS 6.22.

Cool!

However, I don't do any gaming, and I'm not using DOS apps just for vintage fun (although, that would be enough justification!). These DOS apps are my actual working apps.

I need internet, so I'm not doing DOS on metal, but rather creating virtual DOS partitions (using DOSBox-X) on both my Linux and Win10 installs.

I'm emulating MS-DOS 6.22 and running CorelOffice 6.2 for DOS (which is WP6.2 + QP5.6, both for DOS), which was the last (and most mature releases for DOS).

WP 6.2 for DOS has a unique character trait in that it was a highly developed (at least for its day) rich-text word processor that existed when .txt format was still a relevant (and even to some degree still the king of) formats.

By switching to 100% .txt format for all my work, and using WP 6.2 for DOS as a text editor, I get an advantage over using something like Notepad or GEdit in that WP can bring in elements of rich text formatting:

--A nice TUI (with menus, rulers, etc.) that means I don't have to get my (very meager) vim skills up to speed for using CLI Linux word processing tools like MarkDown
--Layout awareness (margins, tabs, hard breaks, etc.)
--Footnotes, endnotes
--Tables
--Macros
--Print previews

But, unlike modern word processors that can also save in .txt format, when WP for DOS saves in .txt, it doesn't introduce any modern codes (verifiable with reveal codes), so you have a pseudo-rich file that's still a true, standard ASCII file that is universally portable (something that was highly necessary for a word processor in 1997).

The elements of rich text that WP can bring make working with plain text much easier (when making documents in .txt rather than, say, coding in .txt), but still allow simple, coding-centric text editors to open/edit files with no problem.

As such, I was able to get full syncing of all my documents with my phone, using QuickEdit for Android (which I swear is a long-lost sibling to WP in many ways!) to read or edit those docs on phone or desktop as easily as I previously did with MS Office 365.

True rich text .wpd files (native format for WP for DOS) are also usable (if I want something fancier than the ASCII plaint text files) because WP can save those in postscript form, which is easily converted to pdf for either emailing or direct printing on a modern printer.

So, you see, I'm really using DOS apps for my actual work. Of course, I wouldn't recommend this setup for an actual workplace environment, but for a retired guy with no heavy workflow and no income, there are some big advantages:

1) All these apps are freely available as abandonware, so no cost involved
2) The fact that they are "frozen in amber from 1997" means no worries about upgrades that upset any apple carts
3) Since I only have free cloud storage, I can't have the bulky-ness of modern setups. My entire DOS partition (that runs virtually under DOSBox-X) includes DOS, all the apps, config files, many documents and spreadsheets and the entire thing is---- 55Mb!

So, while using these things are fun (I used WP + QP full time from 1990-99), it's not just a nostalgia trip for me. These DOS tools are my actual working productivity suite (although, it's the "productivity" of a retired guy!).

Hope you get your 8088 running. I still have my first PC (a Sharp PC-7000, the ultimate portable in 1985!) that was working fine the last time I used it (~1994) but would probably need some cleaning and lubing today.

 

[OVERKILL]

Cool!

However, I don't do any gaming, and I'm not using DOS apps just for vintage fun (although, that would be enough justification!). These DOS apps are my actual working apps.

I need internet, so I'm not doing DOS on metal, but rather creating virtual DOS partitions (using DOSBox-X) on both my Linux and Win10 installs.

I'm emulating MS-DOS 6.22 and running CorelOffice 6.2 for DOS (which is WP6.2 + QP5.6, both for DOS), which was the last (and most mature releases for DOS).

WP 6.2 for DOS has a unique character trait in that it was a highly developed (at least for its day) rich-text word processor that existed when .txt format was still a relevant (and even to some degree still the king of) formats.

By switching to 100% .txt format for all my work, and using WP 6.2 for DOS as a text editor, I get an advantage over using something like Notepad or GEdit in that WP can bring in elements of rich text formatting:

--A nice TUI (with menus, rulers, etc.) that means I don't have to get my (very meager) vim skills up to speed for using CLI Linux word processing tools like MarkDown
--Layout awareness (margins, tabs, hard breaks, etc.)
--Footnotes, endnotes
--Tables
--Macros
--Print previews

But, unlike modern word processors that can also save in .txt format, when WP for DOS saves in .txt, it doesn't introduce any modern codes (verifiable with reveal codes), so you have a pseudo-rich file that's still a true, standard ASCII file that is universally portable (something that was highly necessary for a word processor in 1997).

The elements of rich text that WP can bring make working with plain text much easier (when making documents in .txt rather than, say, coding in .txt), but still allow simple, coding-centric text editors to open/edit files with no problem.

As such, I was able to get full syncing of all my documents with my phone, using QuickEdit for Android (which I swear is a long-lost sibling to WP in many ways!) to read or edit those docs on phone or desktop as easily as I previously did with MS Office 365.

True rich text .wpd files (native format for WP for DOS) are also usable (if I want something fancier than the ASCII plaint text files) because WP can save those in postscript form, which is easily converted to pdf for either emailing or direct printing on a modern printer.

Oh man, this is bringing back the memories! I started on WordPerfect for DOS on the 8088 I mentioned earlier, wrote all my essays and homework as a kid in it. Used QP for spreadsheets. Pretty sure WP (not sure what version) is installed on that computer still.

Pretty cool to hear of somebody using it in a modern capacity!

I believe I still have PC-Tools and PrintShop installed on it as well, along with Procom Plus for all that BBS action!

So, you see, I'm really using DOS apps for my actual work. Of course, I wouldn't recommend this setup for an actual workplace environment, but for a retired guy with no heavy workflow and no income, there are some big advantages:

1) All these apps are freely available as abandonware, so no cost involved
2) The fact that they are "frozen in amber from 1997" means no worries about upgrades that upset any apple carts
3) Since I only have free cloud storage, I can't have the bulky-ness of modern setups. My entire DOS partition (that runs virtually under DOSBox-X) includes DOS, all the apps, config files, many documents and spreadsheets and the entire thing is---- 55Mb!

So, while using these things are fun (I used WP + QP full time from 1990-99), it's not just a nostalgia trip for me. These DOS tools are my actual working productivity suite (although, it's the "productivity" of a retired guy!).

Hope you get your 8088 running. I still have my first PC (a Sharp PC-7000, the ultimate portable in 1985!) that was working fine the last time I used it (~1994) but would probably need some cleaning and lubing today.

Very cool little retirement project, haha! Sounds a bit like a combination of work, with a side of "keep busy" and perhaps a bit of "make work"

I expect I'll get the 8088 working, just a matter of time and motivation.

 

[Jim Rogers]

I believe I still have PC-Tools and PrintShop installed on it as well, along with Procom Plus for all that BBS action!

Ha! I'm using Borland Sidekick as my PIM!

I think you'd have a lot of fun revisiting DOS. It's fairly easy as pretty much all the old DOS apps have either been open-sourced or exist as abandonware, so it's all available for free on WinWorld.

Setting up DOSBox-X is pretty easy, and once you do that you can easily play around with the whole universe of DOS apps (including games, I believe).

Very cool little retirement project, haha! Sounds a bit like a combination of work, with a side of "keep busy" and perhaps a bit of "make work"

You are correct, but it's that awesome sort of fun/keep busy/make work that actually serves a useful purpose-- I've created a pseudo-rich/plain text world that's free and can run on e-waste but does everything I need and could very well keep me set for the rest of my computing life.

However, counterintuitively, I'm an AI maximalist, so I expect some kind of completely disruptive, AI-based change in the computing landscape in the next 10 years or so, so I could very well be changing my strategy at that time.

However, the Linux/DOS setup still serves a useful purpose for me: rather than wasting investment in interim tech that will likely be completely unable to support the AI future I envision, I can just stick to free Linux/DOS and will only spend the bucks on something new when it exists, is fully developed, and provides real value.

I expect I'll get the 8088 working, just a matter of time and motivation.

Hopefully, this discussion will spark that motivation. Let us know if you ever get it going!

 

[ka9mnx]

Debian? Release cycles are usually 3-5 Years. Version 12 came out last Summer. Did I upgrade? No. 11 is working fine and probably supported for another 5-10 years.

Not a fan of Ubuntu except Mint isn't bad.

 

[blain450]

Well I....deleted LinuxMinut and installed Zorin to try it out. I wanted OneDrive integration. I may go back to LinuxMint though, I was expecting more from this integration, although I have to admit Zorin is pretty polished, and runs just as well as LinuxMint did.

I've bought myself some time by enrolling several of my PCs for extended Windows 10 updates. On one, I've loaded 11 just to stay in the loop on it.
But after considering a few Linux distributions, Zorin OS has floated to the top. I haven't loaded version 18 on anything yet, but will probably opt for the Pro installation.
I'm a slacker, so I see the Windows 10 extended updates as buying me another year.
I am looking forward to wading around in the Zorin pond. None of my machines are mission critical, which probably reinforces my lazy streak.

 

[Jim Rogers]

I'm a slacker, so I see the Windows 10 extended updates as buying me another year.
I am looking forward to wading around in the Zorin pond. None of my machines are mission critical, which probably reinforces my lazy streak.

I'm in exactly the same boat!

Got the Win10 ESU for free (since I'm a OneDrive user and back my system up with it) and will be using that time to complete my Linux/DOS setup and migrate all my content to it.

Nothing mission critical, but still happy to have a time extension to perform my conversion at a slow and steady pace.

Good luck with your Zorin choice!

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

Debian? Release cycles are usually 3-5 Years. Version 12 came out last Summer. Did I upgrade? No. 11 is working fine and probably supported for another 5-10 years.

Not a fan of Ubuntu except Mint isn't bad.

Debian releases new versions every two years. 13 came out this past August.

 

[Brons2]

I also have my original 8088 from when I was a kid, but I need to make some repairs to the motherboard. It's running MS-DOS 6.22.

That.....sounds excruciatingly slow, even for DOS.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

... it would probably make more sense for me to just install straight kubuntu.

I'm a big fan of Kubuntu. All the benefits of Ubuntu in a much nicer wrapper than GNOME. But it doesn't seem very popular for some reason.

 

[uc50ic4more]

I'm a big fan of Kubuntu. All the benefits of Ubuntu in a much nicer wrapper than GNOME. But it doesn't seem very popular for some reason.

KDE applications years ago used to be crash-y and bloated and heavy. These days I believe the disparity is usage numbers boils down to:

- Gnome has corporate backing. Red Hat, Canonical, etc. all chip in.
- KDE's apps are not released in unison. It gets a little messy trying to look at the entire ecosystem as "one thing" with a definitive release and support cycle.
- KDE is more popular in Europe than it is in North America.
- Gnome is simpler and therefore probably a lot easier to support.

Also years ago there was a lot of reluctance towards full adoption of KDE by some because the underlying toolkit, Qt, was believed to be patent-encumbered or otherwise burdened by some licensing confusion.

 

[OVERKILL]

That.....sounds excruciatingly slow, even for DOS.

It's no rocket, that's for sure!

 

[Jim Rogers]

That.....sounds excruciatingly slow, even for DOS.

It's a tradeoff-- DOS and DOS apps are so small and light, they run very quick.

But those benefits do not come without a cost-- neither the OS nor the apps have near the power, convenience, or usability as their modern equivalents.

Given my current situation, I'm fine with that trade off and understand that if I want small, light, fast, free, and unchanging, I'm going to have to accept a highly non-modern, somewhat kludgy system.

That tradeoff was fine with me as in the end it does get the job done, but it likely wouldn't be acceptable for most.

I'm a big fan of Kubuntu. All the benefits of Ubuntu in a much nicer wrapper than GNOME. But it doesn't seem very popular for some reason.

I tend to prefer lean systems-- remember, my original plan was to not only forgo having a desktop, but to not even use a window manager! Manual switching between TTY1-6 and Tmux within each terminal was my plan.

So, as you can see, Gnome is way more than what I wanted-- I really have no need for KDE (even though I agree it's a very powerful DE).

 

[Brons2]

I'm a GenXer, I remember the 286s in our computer labs at my rural Juco running DOS around 1989/90 being excruciatingly slow to boot up and load programs from the relatively modest capacity hard drives of that time. I can't imagine how slow an 8088 would be with DOS 6.22, even booting from a hard drive instead of a floppy. (can you imagine today's kids booting an OS from a floppy.....haha)

On a side note, the then-new 386s in the lab were highly coveted around that time!

It's a tradeoff-- DOS and DOS apps are so small and light, they run very quick.

But those benefits do not come without a cost-- neither the OS nor the apps have near the power, convenience, or usability as their modern equivalents.

Given my current situation, I'm fine with that trade off and understand that if I want small, light, fast, free, and unchanging, I'm going to have to accept a highly non-modern, somewhat kludgy system.

That tradeoff was fine with me as in the end it does get the job done, but it likely wouldn't be acceptable for most.



I tend to prefer lean systems-- remember, my original plan was to not only forgo having a desktop, but to not even use a window manager! Manual switching between TTY1-6 and Tmux within each terminal was my plan.

So, as you can see, Gnome is way more than what I wanted-- I really have no need for KDE (even though I agree it's a very powerful DE).

Have you considered FreeDOS? I know some guys that like it for lightweight things.

I personally would like to see more ARM in what has been the traditional PC/Wintel space, but uptake still seems to be pretty slow even though Qualcomm seems to be putting a lot of resources into some pretty nice CPUs/SOCs these days. Motivation for me is maximum capabilty per watt and maximum battery life for laptops.

 

[Jim Rogers]

I'm a GenXer, I remember the 286s in our computer labs at my rural Juco running DOS around 1989/90 being excruciatingly slow to boot up and load programs from the relatively modest capacity hard drives of that time. I can't imagine how slow an 8088 would be with DOS 6.22, even booting from a hard drive instead of a floppy. (can you imagine today's kids booting an OS from a floppy.....haha)

On a side note, the then-new 386s in the lab were highly coveted around that time!

It's been ~30 years, so I could be wrong, but I don't remember DOS being slow to boot at all on my old Sharp PC-7000 (with no hard drive-- floppy disk only).

A quick check on AI on the question yielded this response:

The claim that booting MS-DOS 6.22 on an 8088 is “excruciatingly slow” doesn’t hold up under scrutiny—especially if booting from a hard drive.

Real-world boot behavior:​

• 8088 @ 4.77 MHz was the standard for early IBM PCs.
• MS-DOS 6.22 is lean—core boot files total ~150 KB.
• Hard drive boot typically takes 5–10 seconds, including BIOS POST and file loading.
• Floppy boot is slower (~15–30 seconds), but still not “excruciating” unless you're comparing it to modern SSDs.

MS-DOS 6.22 was designed to run on 8088-class machines. It’s not bloated, and its boot process is streamlined. Calling it “excruciatingly slow” reflects either:

• A modern bias (comparing to SSD boot speeds)
• A misremembered experience (e.g., booting from a failing floppy)
• Or a modal mismatch—expecting real-time responsiveness from a system designed for deliberate, buffered workflows

15-30 second boot times correspond to my memories of booting from a floppy (which I don't consider to be slow-- certainly not "excruciatingly" slow), and the bottom line is that I think it would be pretty much impossible for even an 8088 to take all that much time to boot an OS that is literally 150kB.

I would think a 286 would be even faster.

You also seem to feel that 6.22 in particular would be really slow to boot, but 6.22 was an evolutionary bridge to the pending Windows revolution and had a number of features (e.g., DOSSHELL) removed compared to the 5.x versions. Of course there were some features added as well, but the bottom line is that DOS 6.x was not a victim of bloat.

Have you considered FreeDOS? I know some guys that like it for lightweight things.

I personally would like to see more ARM in what has been the traditional PC/Wintel space, but uptake still seems to be pretty slow even though Qualcomm seems to be putting a lot of resources into some pretty nice CPUs/SOCs these days. Motivation for me is maximum capabilty per watt and maximum battery life for laptops.

I've nothing against FreeDOS, but I think it's more designed for a DOS on metal installation. I'm emulating with DOSBox-X (running on both Win10 and Ubuntu LTS) because my main goal is to gain access to DOS productivity apps on a modern system (I don't really care about the OS and just consider it to be a background wrapper that simply functions to get the apps installed and working).

DOSBox-X includes all the main versions of DOS from which one can choose what they want emulated-- I chose 6.22 since it was the final standalone version released, but I did consider 5.x (to get the deleted features I mentioned).

As such, I don't think FreeDOS would do anything for me at the moment.

However, I have considered digging out some of my old machines, installing DOS, and using them as air-gapped productivity machines (i.e., no internet, just work). If I end up doing that, I'll probably use FreeDOS as it is modernized and supported.

We'll see!

 

[OVERKILL]

It's been ~30 years, so I could be wrong, but I don't remember DOS being slow to boot at all on my old Sharp PC-7000 (with no hard drive-- floppy disk only).

A quick check on AI on the question yielded this response:



15-30 second boot times correspond to my memories of booting from a floppy (which I don't consider to be slow-- certainly not "excruciatingly" slow), and the bottom line is that I think it would be pretty much impossible for even an 8088 to take all that much time to boot an OS that is literally 150kB.

I would think a 286 would be even faster.

You also seem to feel that 6.22 in particular would be really slow to boot, but 6.22 was an evolutionary bridge to the pending Windows revolution and had a number of features (e.g., DOSSHELL) removed compared to the 5.x versions. Of course there were some features added as well, but the bottom line is that DOS 6.x was not a victim of bloat.




I've nothing against FreeDOS, but I think it's more designed for a DOS on metal installation. I'm emulating with DOSBox-X (running on both Win10 and Ubuntu LTS) because my main goal is to gain access to DOS productivity apps on a modern system (I don't really care about the OS and just consider it to be a background wrapper that simply functions to get the apps installed and working).

DOSBox-X includes all the main versions of DOS from which one can choose what they want emulated-- I chose 6.22 since it was the final standalone version released, but I did consider 5.x (to get the deleted features I mentioned).

As such, I don't think FreeDOS would do anything for me at the moment.

However, I have considered digging out some of my old machines, installing DOS, and using them as air-gapped productivity machines (i.e., no internet, just work). If I end up doing that, I'll probably use FreeDOS as it is modernized and supported.

We'll see!

My 8088 is 8Mhz, computer is a Hewitt-Rand, has onboard switchable Hercules/CGA.