I long for a decent OS.

[whabang]

MenuetOS has been around for ages, guys!
The compilers they had back then were probably a lot less effective than they are now. :-)

As for the topic, it's all about matching the OS with suitable HW. My main PC flies after I've spent a few hours optimizing Windows XP. Unless you really have to re-boot for some reason, then the hibernation function gets the system up and running in seconds.

I haven't used Syllable since it changed it's name from AtheOS, but it was a fun OS to play around with.

[whabang]

I wonder how Win98se would run on a 3 ghz machine with 1 gig ram?

Not very well, I'm afraid. Windows 98 starts using all availible RAM over a certain size as disk cache, so even if you have 2 GB of RAM in a machine you'd not be able to use all of it. :-)

However, you make a good point; most modern applications are filled with unneccesary eye-candy.