tomsrtbt (pronounced: Tom's Root Boot) is a very small Linux distribution—MiniLinux. It is short for "Tom's floppy which has a root filesystem and is also bootable (bootfloppy)." The author touts it as "The most GNU/Linux on one floppy disk", containing many common Linux commands useful for system recovery (Linux and other operating systems) and for creating Linux machines without a hard disk. It also features drivers for many types of hardware, and network connectivity. A Linux distribution is a Unix-like operating system comprising the Linux kernel, the GNU operating system (or most of it), other assorted free software/open-source software, and possibly proprietary software. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Linux floppydistro. ... See Filing system for this term as it is used in libraries and offices In computing, a file system is a method for storing and organizing computer files and the data they contain to make it easy to find and access them. ... Bootstrapping alludes to a German legend about a Baron Münchhausen, who was able to lift himself out of a swamp by pulling himself up by his bootstraps. ... In computing, booting is a bootstrapping process that starts operating systems when the user turns on a computer system. ... GNU (See History for pronunciation) is a free software operating system. ... See Linux kernel for the kernel itself. ... In computing, an operating system (aka, OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ...

It can be created from within Microsoft Windows running in MS-DOS mode or Linux, by formatting a standard 1.44MB floppy disk as a higher density 1.72MB disk, and writing its image to the disk. It is capable of reading and writing the filesystems of many operating systems, including ext2 (used in Linux), FAT (used by DOS and some versions of Windows), NTFS (used in Windows NT, 2000, and XP), and Minix (used by the Minix operating system). Microsoft Windows is a series of operating environments and operating systems created by Microsoft for use on personal computers and servers. ... A floppy disk is a data storage device that is composed of a ring of thin, flexible (i. ... The ext2 or second extended file system is a file system for the Linux kernel. ... File Allocation Table (FAT) is a patented file system (patents apply to VFAT and FAT32 portions only) that was developed by Microsoft for MS-DOS and is the primary file system for consumer versions of Microsoft Windows up to and including Windows Me. ... The acronym DOS stands for disk operating system, an operating system component for computers that provides the abstraction of a file system resident on hard disk or floppy disk secondary storage. ... NTFS or New Technology File System is the standard file system of Windows NT and its descendants Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, and was succeeded by Windows 2000 (still based on Windows NT). ... Windows 2000 (also referred to as Win2K, W2K or Windows NT 5. ... Windows XP is a major revision of the Microsoft Windows operating system created for use on desktop and business computer systems. ... Minix is an open source, Unix-like operating system based on a microkernel architecture. ...

Many of the utilities on tomsrtbt are written in the Lua programming language. The Lua (pronounced LOO-ah, or in IPA) programming language is a lightweight, reflective, imperative and procedural language, designed as a scripting language with extensible semantics as a primary goal. ...

See also

• Comparison of Linux distributions

The tables specifically do not include subjective viewpoints on the merits of each operating system. ...

External links

• tomsrtbt homepage
• tomsrtbt wiki, with How-To-style guides of some practical uses of tomsrtbt