Safe OS for power on/off unexpectedly?

[shanghaiguide]

Any suggestions for the safest OS?

I'm familiar with Linux, DOS and Windows.

I've given KnoppixMame, AdvanceMAME (DOS), and Mame32 a quick lookover.
I'm also toying with the idea of putting it all onto a USB key for fast boot, no hard drive.

Any recommendations for the fastest booting/ safest OS?

Anyone tried USB key as a medium? 

My thoughts are that 128M or 256M should be sufficient for OS+Mame+ the capcom rom's that came with the joysticks.

[beek]

I have 98 loaded on a 64meg key for emergency purposes.

[shanghaiguide]

After much faffing around with different options, I've gone with Dos 7, mame 0.60 and glaunch.

I've compiled my own mame without the OK warnings, found DOS drivers for the IBM PC's work was tossing out, and I'm good to go.

DOS appears to handle power on / off without a hiccup so far, so I'm happy.

I did try out win98, but DOS was just easier to do, plus the front end loads in around 15 seconds from boot, so no waiting.

[papaschtroumpf]

most modern comps running XP will do a clean shutdown when you press the power off button.
In my cab, the computer power gates all othe power, so it's a single switch power on/off.

[SirPoonga]

You know NTFS is a journaling file system and can handle just being turned off.

[ArcadEd]

You know NTFS is a journaling file system and can handle just being turned off.

Just to clarify, can or can't?

I always thought it was bad to just shutoff a NTFS machine.  But I do know, like papas said, when I hit the power button on my xp machine it automatically goes through the shutdown process unless I actually hold it down to kill the power.

[quarterback]

[code]NTFS is a journaling file system that uses database-like logging techniques in order to provide increased availability. Journaling file systems commit metadata changes to the file system in transactions. In the event of a power failure or system crash, NTFS quickly rolls back the uncommitted transactions and so is quickly able to return the filesystem back to a consistent state

[ArcadEd]

Great, thanks .

[PacManFan]

It's not safe to just power off XP, which has a NTFS filesystem,

 I had to reboot my laptop the other week because it was acting really slow and sluggish. The task manager took like 2 minutes to appear, and I was in the process of trying to shut down. I got impatient, and did a hard reset with the power button.

Windows XP started to reboot, and then it went to the BSOD, and into an endless cycle of rebooting.
-Safe mode didn't work.
-command prompt didn't work

I had to build a Bart's recovery disk on another computer, and run a scandisk/fixdisk on my system to fix it.

-PMF

[Lilwolf]

I think the answer is DOS and Linux. 

NTFS is suppost to be... but just like windows is suppost to be reliable.

Linux changed it FS about 7 years ago (time??) and now wont be effected by turnoffs. 

But this assumes your not writing a second at the moment you turn off the computer.  No FS will change that.

[jhanson]

I'd go with DOS.  There is not shutdown sequence for DOS.  You just power it off when you're done.  Either that or go with one of the bootable CD solutions.  They're read-only by nature, so there's no chance of corrupting anything by shutting it off at any given time.