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As announced last week, we will now be regularly highlighting some of the differences between Windows and Linux. Today we will focus on the smallest functional systems. While Windows was generally developed for desktop applications and has required increasingly powerful hardware in recent years, Linux is characterized by its flexibility – especially when it comes to creating a lean, resource-saving system. The smallest functional Windows system that we found in our research is Tiny10. In the 32-bit version, the installation size is 5.5 GB. The 64-bit version comes in at around 10GB.
These are impressive figures for a Windows system, but as Linux users, we would almost fall out of our chairs. There are Linux distributions that are compressed to just a few megabytes, such as Tiny Core Linux, which comes in at less than 20 MB. This small Linux system offers amazing functionality and is often used on older or embedded systems. You can even fit a usable Linux system on a floppy disk:

https://bits.p1x.in/floppinux-an-embedded-linux-on-a-single-floppy/

Resource-saving systems are part of everyday life in our projects. Many devices in the embedded sector simply do not require huge distributions. One task, one application, one UI. We often manage to implement a modern device control system with a root file system size of just a few dozen MB. Of course, we know that Windows has different application purposes and development focuses than our embedded Linux systems. But it is interesting to see what big tasks such tiny systems can perform.