Yeah, wifi on DOS is doable, but very limited in speed and not exactly straightforward to set up (so much that I haven't seriously considered trying myself). Here's an overview and a writeup:
No kidding. Lots of fun to see a system actually boot in about 1 second.
That aside, I've installed all kinds of systems on my trusty 2009 Dell Mini 9, a fanless netbook. For years, this was a CLI-only Tiny Core Linux system, currently running SvarDOS. While on Linux, I even used it to live record 1,5-hour long radio shows via an old Mbox2 audio interface and some CLI recording software. Created a huge ramdisk just in case, but everything went well. Netbooks are weird and interesting machines.
Sasha may also refer to Alexandra, which is a feminine first name. What's more, there's like a ton of diminutive short names for these -- my first ever instagram link on HN, but: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTUeNn7iAit/
(FWIW, it lists: Sasha, Sashka, Sashulya, Sashenka, Sanya, Sanechka, Sancho, San, Shurik, Sashunya, Sanyusha, Sanyok. I myself have heard native Russians use Sash - should be written as Сашь -, and e.g. Mish - Мишь -, which is a similar "lazy" conversational short form for Misha/Mikhail.
I've learned some Russian, and once you start sensing the endless magic they can do with verb prefixes and sufixes, you realize what a versatile language this is. Somewhat the same counts for first names, I guess.)
"The technique gained the name the "Fosbury Flop" when in 1964 the Medford Mail-Tribune ran a photo captioned "Fosbury Flops Over Bar," while in an accompanying article a reporter wrote that he looked like "a fish flopping in a boat." Others were even less kind, with one newspaper captioning Fosbury's photograph, "World's Laziest High Jumper""
+1, same here, I've used line editors a fair bit (and enjoying line-oriented interface in general), so rlwrap has been an essential tool for me. Many thanks for your work!
DOS is very much alive these days, though [0]. Text-mode internet is there (should you want online in the first place), and, thanks to some amazing devs, soundcard support has made a huge leap [1].
I use it every day lately (for text-related work and hobbyst-level assembly learning -- my intent is to write a small application to do paid work which involves chopping audio files). And -- I say a single-tasking system is a complete, true bliss in our days. Paired with a 4:3 Thinkpad screen, that DOS environment gives me instant focus for a long time -- which, to me, has been almost impossible to accomplish on a multi-tasking, contemporary-web-browser-equipped system recently.
Apparently, though, there seems to be AI for DOS, too [2]. :) I prefer my DOS machine to be completely offline, though. Peace and harmony for the soul!
+1. I would add RJ The Bike Guy's youtube channel -- straightforward, down-to-earth, no-nonsense videos, may prove immensely useful if you have simple, traditional, cheaper-end bicycles at home, and only a basic set of tools. Excellent explainer; has similar "vibe" to Sheldon Brown's site IMO: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaAK2FaxQ2xiBbAUVZsvDYQ
Yeah. There's probably tens of thousands of internet users worldwide with that same story. Myself included: when I was fixing my Bianchi retro road bike's derailleur etc some 20 years ago as a univesity freshman, this site was a definite gold mine, immensely helpful, and taught me a ton. One of my favorite procrastination rabbit holes as well back then. :) And -- a prime example of 1990s era internet and information freedom and layman-level enthusiasm -- selfless sharing of knowledge (and, I wonder if he also used Notepad to write the HTML :). Thanks, Mr Brown, for everything, all the way from Estonia!
Side note: looking at the screenshot gallery on the linked site, it is interesting to see how often audio software GUIs mimic real, physical devices in remarkable detail. Carefully crafted graphics for volume dials, sliders etc.
Another distro worth noting here is EasyOS, a current project by Puppy Linux creator Barry Kauler: https://easyos.org/
I remember having tested it, but can't remember what it was like :) -- at least it didn't make me switch from Tiny Core Linux, which I've used extensively. From a superficial, distro-hopper view, DSL, Puppy, EasyOS and Tiny Core all feel quite similar, I guess.
As a side note, it is interesting to see DSL and TC on the HN front page in two consecutive days of 2025. Both are very old projects; I wonder what's the impulse behind this current interest.
What's the size of your "diskless" NetBSD installation, and how fast does it boot?
As compared to TC, the "out of the box" NetBSD images contain many things I wouldn't need, so customizing it has been a recurring thought, but oh well. The documentation and careful modularity is, obviously, a huge bonus of NetBSD in that regard (even an end-user like me could do some interesting modifications of the kernel solely by reading the manual). TC seems much more ad-hoc, but I assume this, too, is intentional, by design.
I like using old hardware, and Tiny Core was my daily driver for 5+ years on a Thinkpad T42 (died recently) and Dell Mini 9 (still working). I tried other distros on those machines, but eventually always came back to TC. RAM-booting makes the system fast and quiet on that 15+ years old iron, and I loved how easy it was to hand-tailor the OS - e.g. the packages loaded during boot are simply listed in a single flat file (onboot.lst).
I used both the FLTK desktop (including my all-time favorite web browser, Dillo, which was fine for most sites up to about 2018 or so) and the text-only mode. TC repos are not bad at all, but building your own TC/squashfs packages will probably become second nature over time.
I can also confirm that a handful of lenghty, long-form radio programs (a somewhat "landmark" show) for my Tiny Country's public broadcasting are produced -- and, in some cases, even recorded -- on either a Dell Mini 9 or a Thinkpad T42 and Tiny Core Linux, using the (now obsolete?) Non DAW or Reaper via Wine. It was always fun to think about this: here I am, producing/recording audio for Public Broadcasting on a 13+ year old T42 or a 10 year old Dell Mini netbook bought for 20€ and 5€ (!) respectively, whereas other folks accomplish the exact same thing with a 2000€ MacBook Pro.
It's a nice distro for weirdos and fringe "because I can" people, I guess. Well thought out. Not very far from "a Linux that fits inside a single person's head". Full respect to the devs for their quiet consistency - no "revolutionary" updates or paradigm shifts, just keeping the system working, year after year. (FLTK in 2025? Why not? It does have its charm!) This looks to be quite similar to the maintenance philosophy of the BSDs. And, next to TC, even NetBSD feels "bloated" :) -- even though it would obviously be nice to have BSD Handbook level documentation for TC; then again, the scope/goal of the two projects is maybe too different, so no big deal. The Corebook [1] is still a good overview of the system -- no idea how up-to-date it is, though.
All in all, an interesting distro that may "grow on you".
See also: PDOS (Public Domain Operating System) https://www.pdos.org/ -- a single-person project with a remarkably stream-of-concsiousness-style webpage. Not sure how well 'geniuine' DOS software works on this system, though.
https://help.fdos.org/en/hhstndrd/network/wifi.htm
https://www.os2museum.com/wp/wireless-networking-in-dos/