"Does the average PC or laptop really need to spend two minutes
or more booting up and then perhaps half that powering down?
According to the makers of the cut-down Linux OS, Presto, if all a
user wants to do is browse the web and use a handful of basic
applications, it can be done in seconds either way.
"Xandros Presto is - for want of a better term - a 'lightweight'
version of the company's Debian-derived Linux distribution, and no
prizes for guessing the thinking behind its name. Chopped down to a
basic stub that boots in the presence of Windows, it fires up in
seconds, and shuts down equally rapidly. Loading it from a laptop
also running XP, it becomes obvious how bloated Windows has become
over the years by comparison, even in its supposedly clean XP
form."