[Cialug] [cialug]small linux

[Dave J. Hala Jr.]

When I want to try something out on the cheap I track down a 500mhz
machine. They run the common distros well and are more likely to be
"linux friendly"

I think that if I was going to try and run on a 166 or lower, I'd look
at one of the embedded distros and see what I could find.  While I
haven't done a whole lot with it, I think it would be a fun project.







On Sun, 2005-01-02 at 12:30, dave@visionary.com wrote:
> I think the "mainstream" distros are targeting higher-end machines,
> because that's what people want to use. You can get a cheap PC with a
> 2+ghz processor for $400. That's pretty amazing, really. In the late 80's
> and early 90's, it was easy to spend $3k on a nice PC -- and that was
> about 1/10th of the computing power & storage of that $400 PC.
> 
> I've been running Mandrake 10.1 with the 2.6 kernel on a 266mhz PII w/
> 128mb RAM, and it runs KDE and FireFox just fine. I've found that the 2.6
> kernel feels a lot faster on low-end hardware than 2.4. While that's not
> as low-end as what Dan's looking at, by today's standard, that's a pretty
> slow computer.
> 
> There are a lot of distributions geared towards lower end systems, and
> even imbedded devices. I don't have a lot of experience with them. Have
> you looked around at http://distrowatch.com/ to see what's available?
> 
> -dc
> 
> Don Cady <doncady@bigfoot.com> said:
> 
> > [rant]
> > Software creep; This is something that has been worrying/discuraging me 
> > lately. When I first looked at linux, you could load it on an old pentium 
> > and expect reasonable response. The ability to keep your hardware longer
> was 
> > one of the advantages over windows. Now it seems the bare minimum is a PII, 
> > and will soon be a PIII. Only one hardware generation better, how is this 
> > much better than windows?
> > [/rant]
> > Has there been any discussion of this among the top of Linuxdom?
> > 
> > dh- Have you tried your usual cadre of damn small, feather, and puppy?
> > 
> > Don
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Kenneth Ristau" <kristau@kristau.net>
> > To: <cialug@cialug.org>
> > Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 4:44 PM
> > Subject: Re: [Cialug] [cialug]small linux
> > 
> > 
> > > Dan Hockey wrote:
> > >> does anyone know of a linux distro that will run on a old computer?
> its a 
> > >> p75 40mb ram and 6gb hdd. i've tried debian 3r2 but keep messing up 
> > >> things when installing X.
> > >> -dh
> > >
> > > I suppose that depends a lot on what you want to use it for.  If you are 
> > > just setting up a workstation with no network or on a well-firewalled 
> > > network, then a older distro might work fine for you.  I have some old 
> > > CD's I could dig up with RH 6.x and early RH 7.x if you want them.
> > >
> > > If, however, you are wanting a modern kernel or the system will have to 
> > > fend for itself on a hostile network, then there isn't much out there I'm 
> > > afraid.  The older distros are so out of date that they would likely be 
> > > compromised in short order, even if you applied all the patches you could 
> > > find.
> > >
> > > I have Knoppix 3.2 running on a P133 laptop with 140 Mb of RAM and it is 
> > > dog, dog slow.  My wife uses it to look up recipes from our ReciPants 
> > > database, so it suits its purpose well because once she looks the recipe 
> > > up, it stays on the screen for a long time.  It is almost impossible to 
> > > read Slashdot or Google News unless you have the patience of a 150 year 
> > > old Tibetan monk.
> > >
> > > If you want those old disks, let me know and I'll bring them to the next 
> > > meeting.
> > >
> > > later,
> > > kristau
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Cialug mailing list
> > > Cialug@cialug.org
> > > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Cialug mailing list
> > Cialug@cialug.org
> > http://cialug.org/mailman/listinfo/cialug
> > 
> > 
-- 

Open Source Information Systems (OSIS)
Dave J. Hala Jr. <dave@osis.us>
641.485.1606