Linux.com

As somebody who, on principle, does never EVER spend money on new computers, I can attest that GNU/Linux does a great job on old hardware. Personally, my preference goes to Debian-Sarge which I run on an old 300MHz machine and with full KDE is *faster* then on some of the newest Apple machines (-: I know, I tried with a Maccie friend who was quite shoked<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

For really old machines I would reccommend Damn Small Linux (DSL) which is an absolutely fantastic distro.

And if you do not need GUI, even the lastest Kanotix runs very well on old hardware.

My fastest machine is a 800MHz and my slowest a PentiumPro!!

All work just fine and cost me no money.

The money I save goes to the FSF and the Debian project.

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Shoked? yeah, I thunk so...

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how many languages do you know besides (some) English? ever considered that for some, English might be a 3rd or 4th language?

Do you still feel as smug now?!

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Watch your sentence boundaries, pal.

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Sadly, on my 166mhz/48mb DSL runs X like a molassis whereas Windows95 runs like lightning launching Java apps and playing mp3:s. Don't dare put in on the network though. Going back in time is such a chore.

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You guys are WAY overplaying the "Linux is the savior" routine. Their are many varieties of Linux that are great operating systems; being free makes them even better. I love open-source software just as much as the next guy, but your verbal fellatio toward Linux is just a little much.

Why don't you be less dramatic and just say that Linux runs well. I have been through about 10 different Linux distros - Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, Mandriva, Fedora, etc. While I have found them all to be great, nome of them is as great as you claim. I have run dual-boot and new machines side-by-side with Windows and Linux. I have never been blown away by Linux. I have used, setup, and repaired thousands of machines and various OSes, and I have to say that your claims are bogus.

I would pay for your plane ticket for you to come out here and show me a 300mhz machine that could keep up with even my fairly older Windows boxes.

Everyone knows that Windows is far from perfect, but don't bullshit us all by making your outrageous claims. Pound-for-pound, Linux is a better OS than Windows, but it can't move mountains with its barehands. Just tone down your Linux-spawned enthusiasm.

In response to someone else's post, I speak two languages. I'm not really sure how that applies to anything.

In summation, how your system runs doesn't have that much to do with what software you are running, and to some extent what hardware. If you treat your system like dirt, it will run that way. I have seen Windows 2k3 servers run flawlessly for a year straight, and I've seen a Linux smoothwall box get a virus after a few months. It really just depends on how you take care of what you have. There are hundreds of widely-used programs, and games that won't even run on boxes you are talking about. Sell your bullshit to people who don't know any better.

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okey

im running ubuntuDapper on a 350mhz comp with an ati rage pro card
Im using 90mb of 310 when i have plain desktop using Gnome!!!
Gnome =Windowsxp+extra eye candy

Still this computer runs faster than a windows xp comp with a 800mhz proc and 256mb ram:D

come on 350mhz pentium faster than a 800mhz;)

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Agreed, overstating the capabilities of Linux does an injustice to all the many people who give their time & effort to the many projects that make up Linux.

One other point I'd like to remind people, Linux is *not* an Operating System. Linux is a *Kernel*.

It's up to people to bundle it with whatever other components they like to create something resembling an Operating System.

Last time I checked there are at least 491 different 'ditributions' of Linux as an OS.

Innovation & creativity is very good but this level of duplication & lack of focus is a hindrance not a help IMHO...

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my turn.

Mandrake 9.0 on a 450MHz laptop
Debian Sarge on a 300MHz desktop
Mandrake 7.2 on a Pentium Pro

All with KDE et plenty of eye candy.

(Mind you - these are not really that old computers and KDE is a ressources hog. For real speed, try DSL on *really* old machines)

All of the above faster, a lot faster, than Win98/W2k. Also faster than Debian on Mac and A LOT faster than OSX on Mac (by faster, I mean at boot up and at application loading).

You are welcome to speak about us fellating GNU/Linux, but may I suggest that you are in, shall we say, "Greek passive" role with your proprietery OS?!

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As far as I remember, those Win9x are still pretty damn fast. Too bad they are missing key features, and Microsoft won't support them to force expensive upgrades. As another poster said for basic desktop use Win95 runs circles around DSL.
I probably should try OS/2 for comparisons.

I think Linux is the best OS around for now and develops at impressive speed. I wouldn't really use anything else, even if Windows has all the fun games. But it sure won't hurt to keep my eyes open for alternatives. And to blindly promote Linux as the only possible option, flaming other OSes is a real turnoff.

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A Smoothwall box got a virus!!??

Really!

Well that would be news! That would be the 2nd Linux virus out in the wild. Since I run Smoothwall I would sure appreciate it if you could point me to any documentation and fixes for that vulnerability.

If you can't then you are full of shit.

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some do overplay it yes.. but in general its good to have enthusiasm for the open source community which in the long run is just trying to help more people get into this movement..
but as you say "windows blows away the linux kernel" at times *may* be true for some...

IF
you
-dont install to many programs
-dont anger windows
+ run antivirus software to slow things down
++ run firewall software to slow things down
+++run anti-popup software to slow things down
+defragment everyday to maintain top speeds of that horrendous file system,
these are very big factors here for a -nicely- running operating system
unless your brainwashed like the rest to believe virus's, spyware, defragmenting and wasted time is a native factor of computing?

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Did you read the post below in the other thread. the part which says: In any case, I'm running Damn Small Linux on a 166MHz HP Vectra VL/5 PC with 48M RAM and a 2GB HD. I resurrected it as a "media PC" (ok, really only audio) from some junk my brother salvaged from the trash when an office recapped their HW, ages ago. It boots pretty quick (after installing to the HD) and plays internet radio well (via an old Sound Blaster card). The box had Win 95 on it when I started -- there was no chance in hell it would run XP.?

Try doing something like that with *ANY* Windblows version or, yes Maccies - I am talking about you guys, with any Apple product (since Mac OSs cannot run (yet) on x86, I mean using 1995 old harware and run, say, Mac OSX or even MacOS9 on it).

Or better: TRY IT YOURSELF and see if you are really bullsh*tting you about what GNU/Linux can, or cannot, do...

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As a reply/response to everyone, let me reiterate. I thought I made it quite clear what my statement was. I have in no way insulted Linux as an OS/Kernel or otherwise. Linux (its myriad distributions) is an incredible OS. At home, I run XP Pro on my laptop because I haven't found a Linux distro with sufficient hardware support, and it's simply easier to travel with Windows. I think we can all agree that Windows (unfort.) is much more broadly supported in terms of connecting a mobile system through various means.

On my desktops at home, I run mostly dual-boots of XP and Ubuntu and a single Server 2003 machine. Linux is amazing, and truly is more reliable and more powerful in general than Windows (and than OS X). A Windows box can be run very effectively, possibly close to as well as a Linux box, but as someone said it takes a lot of work. For a Linux machine, you just use it, a Windows machine you have to babysit - constant virus checks and updates, spyware protection, ms updates, and a potpourri of other fixes.

My dispute is NOT that Windows is better than Linux in any way. Quite the contrary. However, I disagree wholeheartedly when you compare a 300mhz machine to what was originally stated as new Mac boxes. That's just ludicrous. If you had two machines of similar power, sure the Linux machine would most likely outperform the Windows machine on most levels. Your surrealism, however is destructive to the Linux community. Prospective Linux users will see your overzealous attitude as mere insanity and won't buy the hype. Or they will put Linux on their P4 and be upset when it doesn't fly to Mars out of pure speed.

In reference to the Smoothwall response, am I incorrect in using smoothwall (lowercase) for a generic term? It's a term that I have often heard and used for a box being used essentially as a firewall. We were using a linux box just outside of our router, so that any incoming attacks would essentially see an unpregnable box instead of a faulty Windows machine. If my terminology is incorrect, I apologize. This machine, however, did come under attack and was infected. I apologize for not having the virus logs to provide you, but I laughed at your response - "Prove it, or you're full of shit!! -<nobr> <wbr></nobr>....calm down tiger.

I am not attacking your community, nor am I backing down from my original statement. My original statement was simply that you were overinflating the performance of your machines.

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""Prove it, or you're full of shit!! -<nobr> <wbr></nobr>....calm down tiger"<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

Alright, I'm calm now. The use of the term smoothwall to mean any firewall box is a new one to me. Could be.

Regardless, your statement that a Linux firewall was infected with a virus is wrong. The only Linux virus outside the lab was one that infected Red Hat (not sure which iteration). That virus barely made it out of the lab and was more proof of concept than anything. That your Linux firewall could have been cracked is entirely possible, that there was a virus infection is not.

It is likely that you don't know the difference between being cracked and being infected with a virus. There are plenty of people these days saying that Linux will get viruses just like MSWindows. Those people don't know what they are talking about. Due to an entirely different architecture, hundreds of distros and numerous iterations of each distro Linux will never provide the base for viruses that MSWindows does.

Could one box be infected with a virus once it was compromised? I guess so. If that were happening I am sure I would have read about it by now, yet I have not. Maybe your the leading edge. Then again, maybe your full of shit like I said.

Only someone totally ignorant could talk about virus infected Linux machines. That may not be the case forever but for now it is.

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At home, I run XP Pro on my laptop because I haven't found a Linux distro with sufficient hardware support, and it's simply easier to travel with Windows. I think we can all agree that Windows (unfort.) is much more broadly supported in terms of connecting a mobile system through various means.

I disagree. Your problem probably comes form running Ubuntu. Try Kanotix for top hardware support. As for connectivity, GNU/Linux comes with *many* more tools and capabilities than MS.

I disagree wholeheartedly when you compare a 300mhz machine to what was originally stated as new Mac boxes.

Well, what I can say?! I am truly sorry that you "disagree wholeheartedly" with something I saw with my own eyes during a LUG meeting. Now, the Apple machine was *not* a top-of-the-line Apple box, but a rather small one which, if I remember well, was sold no screen or keyboard attached. It was super silent and about the size of a small notebook. So it was definitely not the fastest Apple out there, but it was brand new (my friend said that it was Apple's latest baby). My friend and I compared the speed of Aqua versus KDE, the time it took to load Open Office, downloads and a couple of other things. Each time my 300MHz Debian-Sarge box was *much* faster.

I do not mean to say that any of the above is somehow scientific. But it simply shows that instead of spening money on a fancy looking but underperforming Mac and its associated bloatware, you could get a better solution for 200 bucks or less, or even for free if you know where to look, by installing Debian on an old machine.

Not to mention the fact that Apple product are corporate and proprietary whereas Debian is free and community based. [I know, I will get "commies and hippies" comments for saying this...]

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the Apple machine was *not* a top-of-the-line Apple box, but a rather small one which, if I remember well, was sold no screen or keyboard attached. It was super silent and about the size of a small notebook. So it was definitely not the fastest Apple out there, but it was brand new (my friend said that it was Apple's latest baby).

This machine is a mini Mac. Here is how Apple describes it: (emphasis added by me)

Mac mini makes it easy and affordable to work with digital photos, movies, music, and the web. And now it all happens with the blazing speed of the Intel Core, in either Solo or Duo configurations. Choose the Solo for a low-cost entry to iLife ’06. Or select the Duo model for unprecedented power in such a small package — up to four times faster than previously. Coupled with an all new architecture and the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X, Mac mini runs all your modern and innovative software, speedily.

source:<a href="http://www.apple.com/macmini/" title="apple.com">http://www.apple.com/macmini/</a apple.com>

Here are the official specs:


        * 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo or 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor

        * 2MB on-chip L2 cache

        * 667MHz frontside bus

        * 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300) on two DIMMs; supports up to 2GB

source: <a href="http://www.apple.com/macmini/whatsinside.html" title="apple.com">http://www.apple.com/macmini/whatsinside.html</a apple.com>

And with all that this Apple box (priced at 600-800$ + tax) get's beat by an old 300MHz Debian box. LOL!!

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I have noticed that GNU/Linux like to use old hardware - sometimes the older the better - Windows users and, even more so, Mac users actually *feel good* when they get more expensive hardware to run their bloatware (I suppose that they think that MHzes kind of compensate for their lack of skills).

Apple users, in particular, are the worst techno-snobs I have ever seen. They *love* their bloatware and they *love* to spend their money on the (already overpriced) hardware needed to run it.

So among some computer users, the GNU/Linux' ability to run very well on older hardware is actually a liability, not an asset.

Go figure...

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Oh my what a binary world.

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Yes that's why mac have the longest life spawn and the best resale value....pfff

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Dude, we just dislike use broach file for let linux run finally *properly* and dislike to compile the latest alpha-drivers from the CVS overnight to get two years old model printer work properly with correct color gamma. We also dislike run terrible *bloatware* of openoffice.org and tired to see screwed M$ Word documents in OOo Writer. Therefore we want to buy nice Apple powerbook with nice hardware, which is _CHEAPER_ than chinese Lenovo (aka IBM Thingy Pad, covered by black powder of an army rubber).

All else is OK with your linux — running well on the *servers* (unless OpenSolaris installed).<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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You, sir, are an idiot

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It's not news, that same nut has been blasting mac users and embarrassing other Debian fellows for ages now on Newsforge.

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"You, sir, are an idiot"

i second that

this person needs to go read a book
preferably a real one

before attacking the open source community in any form

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actually, you would benefit from reading a book or two also before posting that Apple is part of the "open source community in any form"

or maybe you never really read the OP?

maybe you should read a real post before trying your first real book?

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I never said apple is a part of the open source community.

they just seems to be stating a little hostility to software (OOo/some older linux drivers) when people work so hard to code the damn stuff hoping others will come along and improve/suggest on it.. having people bash their work must hurt somewhere

and by read a book i mean read a good general linux / distro book.

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What I can do: 486DX, 16MB of RAM 1 credit card size GNU/Linux distro (DSL). *ZERO* budget:

I can run DSL Linux on an old 486DX with 16MB of RAM from a credit-card size CD, install several servers, and do it all on a computer without any hard drives at all. In 5 min. If the machine does have a HD, I can install 15000+ Debian packages on it after making a hyper-easy install to the hard drive.

What you, or any other Maccie can do:

(please tell us here what you need in terms of hardware, software, media and budget to match or better these capabilities. Or, be really honest, bow your head in shame, and do not post anything at all<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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they are not going to answer anything, since:

1) Apple does not offer live-CDs
2) Apple does not offer credit card size installers
3) Apple does not offer 15000+ packages
4) Apple's current OSs do not run on late 1980's Apple chips
5) Apple makes you pay for everything

Hence - their silence (-: and our giggles<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-P

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I've built an entire network out of old hardware --- literally everything was kit that someone else was throwing out. Most of our kit was lower spec than that used in the article (and I suspect that the MS tests referenced at the start are based on better "old" hardware than I mean by the term)

Anyway, we used Slackware 9 (then current) with IceWM. Even got OpenOffice running (as with many programs in the article, it's fine once it's going though it does take a while to start).

I also got a very usuable, graphical system with networking running on a 486 laptop with about 200M disk and 20M RAM. That was using Deli linux. Again, I used IceWM with Siag Office, Dillo and Slypheed. You can install Slack 7 packages which meant I could add tetex and a PDF viewer. It even had a lightweight web server, PHP and SQLite which meant I could do development work on our websites on it.

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Try troff/groff for typesetting, it is much lighter and smaller than TeTeX. If you can view manual pages, groff is installed<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:).

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TO follow this story and the comments then these comments don't tell the whole story as Linux.com comments should also be read.

Is there a connection between NewsForge and LINUX.com...? If so, then the crap of publishing these articles with two comment locations is something that we all see thru and are not too happy with.

If you link to your own sites in major articles...then LINK DIRECTLY TO THEM! I know that you want to increase page hits... but, the way you are intentionally doing this is DISHONEST to your viewers and to your advertisers.

Clean up your act Please. Thank-you!

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Yes, NewsForge and Linux.com are both parts of OSTG.

Check facts, then post...

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Yes, Newsforge and Linux.com are both part of OSTG.

Check facts, then flame...

(Apologies for double post, forgot to change the subject line...)

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The X server that GNU/Linux uses is heavy and slow and not suitable for old hardware, but it has some advanced features that MS Windows doesn't have. So maybe the best way to use the GNU system on old hardware would be running a thin-client server on a newer machine and making the old boxes thin-client terminals?

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Are there lighter alternatives for XOrg that can run the same X applications on the local machine?

I only know of framebuffer drivers and svgalibs that aren't compatible with X applications.

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As the other poster posted, he's aware that Linux.com and Newsforge and Slashdot are all part of OSTG. That's what's enabling the link-through. What the other posters may not have realized is that Linux.com is an exclusive club. You have to be registered in order to post. OSTG is using the higher volume site of Slashdot to drive traffic to Linux.com. Linux.com isn't as well known or as heavily trafficked as Slashdot. So when posting stories such as this one, there are a lot of new or infrequent visitors coming by. Since they are new or infrequent visitors, it's highly likely that many of them haven't registered at Linux.com so they can't post. That leaves the option of backing all the way out to slashdot to leave a comment, or backing out only once to Newsforge to leave a comment, since Newsforge allows anonymous posts.



The club over at Linux.com is trying to have its cake and eat it too. They want to retain the exclusivity of posting only by registered users, while at the same time are trying to attract more eyeballs without losing them because they can't post at Linux.com and simply leave to go somewhere else instead of staying on Linux.com, Newsforge, or Slashdot.



The detour to Newsforge because of the restriction on posting by registered users only on Linux.com shows that many visitors still won't register especially if they visit infrequently or for the first time, and at the same time shows how obstinate the Linux.com club (and the other OSTG site that evaluates tech stocks) is about the registration requirement to post. They'd rather have new visitors jump through hoops instead of allowing anonymous posts.

If you download new apps, you'll need to restart the window manager for them to show up in the application menus

Last time I checked, DSL was Debian based. To see the applications in the menus after installing without rebooting, open a shell, su to root, then update-menus should be the command. If not, then type update- and hit tab twice rapidly in succession and choose from the given choices. Once you run the command, all the apps are listed in the appropriate menus. In case DSL can't decide which app belongs in which menu, if the menu app works the same as Debian, then you'll have a Lost & Found menu choice where apps that the menu application gets confused on are placed.



The above instructions for DSL and menus applies to the other applications reviewed as long as they are based on Debian. If not based on Debian, try the update- tab, tab trick anyway, and see what choices are available, or seek help for finding the equivalent commands in non-Debian based small distros.



One more issue with any Linux distro used on old systems. From what I remember reading, the new 2.6.x kernel requires more space. DSL, when I tried it, was using the 2.2.x kernel when 2.4.x was the latest, and was using the 2.4.x kernel as 2.6.x was just coming out iirc. My guess, without checking, is that it is using the 2.4.x kernel. Be aware that if you want to switch to the 2.6.x kernel for any reason, you may have problems with limited ram or limited disk space. Not to knock the 2.4.x kernel. It is still well supported and will be for quite a while, and should work better than the 2.6.x kernel because it retains support for all types of hardware, where the 2.6.x kernel started dropping support (from what I remember reading) for some really old hardware and requires more disk space and ram for even a very minimal install.



As for the opinion on DSL, from my tryouts of it some 4-5 years ago, I'd recommend it as well. It's great to see that it is still supported and under continued development.



Now if I could only get OpenOffice.org, Firefox and Acroreader to see the new HP 4+ printer connected to one of my Debian boxes instead of the printer it replaced...then I wouldn't have to convert files to pdf and open them with a kde app to print them. Old printer, Epson ink jet, via parallel, worked fine with cups, remove Epson, replace with HP, edit cups, restart cups, kde apps see the HP, OpenOffice, Firefox, Acroreader all still see the Epson only, with no option for adding new printers under these apps.



Ahhh, the joys of GNU/Linux!

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I run alot of _really_ old hardware. Sparcs and sgis from 10 years ago, alphas from even earlier, and even a bit of x86 here and there. About the only thing of mine windows has come close to running on were the alphas, and even then that support has long been dropped. Linux however runs on _every_ platform I have regardless of age or architecture. It's the only OS in existance that has lay to that claim. To say otherwise is just.. ignorance. Go Microsoft go, you'll get your facts right sooner or later I'm sure. Most likely after it's too late<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:P

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I'm as big a Linux bigot as the next man but have never heard of NetBSD?

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As another reply mentioned, NetBSD can probably top Linux in this regard (see <a href="http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/" title="netbsd.org">here</a netbsd.org> for evidence - yes, they do SPARC, SGI, ALPHA...). I used to run NetBSD on my Amiga (before Linux 68k had anything useful), and in the years since they have continued their trend of making NetBSD boot on practically anything that has a processor. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see a lawnmower show up on the ports list eventually. (Heh, especially something like <a href="http://www.friendlyrobotics.com/" title="friendlyrobotics.com">this</a friendlyrobotics.com>!)

In any case, I'm running Damn Small Linux on a 166MHz HP Vectra VL/5 PC with 48M RAM and a 2GB HD. I resurrected it as a "media PC" (ok, really only audio) from some junk my brother salvaged from the trash when an office recapped their HW, ages ago. It boots pretty quick (after installing to the HD) and plays internet radio well (via an old Sound Blaster card). The box had Win 95 on it when I started -- there was no chance in hell it would run XP. I was inspired by a friend who used DSL to do the same with an old Pacard Bell w/16M (he did end up adding another 16M to it, though...)

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NetBSD has an impressive list indeed, but you miss the context of my statement: it doesn't run on all of _my_ platforms. Linux does<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

I tried NetBSD several times on one of the alphaserver 2100a's, even had a self-professed NetBSD expert assisting. In the end we had to give up, it just refused to boot successfuly on that system. OpenVMS and Linux had no issue with it however.

Have you personally ever tried NetBSD on some of the world's more obscure architectures and platforms? I've always found it to be somewhat of a nightmare to get up initially.

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gentoo is a really clean distro iv been a long time slack user and still dearly miss using it when i have a second hd ill probably dual boot

but portage is amazing saves lots of time
and the installation was really fun

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I had a problem trying to install SuSE 9.1 on a Compaq Deskpro (Pentium Pro 200, 128mb ram).
I had messed up my SuSE 8.0 install and thought i'd give 9.1 a go instead.
This was a bad decision, as the Yast installer took ages to work out dependencies when adding and removing packages on install.
I'm not joking when I say it took me several hours to select everything i wanted.
It's now installed and works fine (except 9.1 doesn't seem to recognise the Cirrus Logic onboard VGA adapter, but then i wasn't going to use X anyway), but the kernel 2.6 is notably slower than 2.4.

This old version problem isn't really a problem as there are loads of old ISOs floating around the net, it is a problem however, if you want updates from SuSE as they seem to remove old update directories.
I have taken to mirroring them myself, which is annoying.

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I had a problem trying to install SuSE 9.1 on a Compaq Deskpro (Pentium Pro 200, 128mb ram).
I had messed up my SuSE 8.0 install and thought i'd give 9.1 a go instead. This was a bad decision, as the Yast installer took ages to work out dependencies when adding and removing packages on install. I'm not joking when I say it took me several hours to select everything i wanted.

I would not have made this reccomendation in the recent past, but since Debian Sarge and its new installer this is the way to go. Debian handles dependecies better than any other distro, is more secure and stable out of the box, comes with optimized applications, is totally free (as in speech and beer), and runs *fast* on older computers (such as my 300MHz box). Your PentiumPro will do very fine with FluxBox and do ok with KDE.

Forget (the RPM - based) Suse: it has nothing to offer. Once you get used to apt and Synaptic, you will never want to go back to "RPM hell" no matter how much less of a hell it is advetised to be!

Good luck!

(BTW - you can also install a full Deb with Damn Small Linux or Kanotix)

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This is something that's neat about Linux. Old hardware are detected and could be used with it. A surprising thing to some because old hardware are thought to be something to be thrown away already.

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That I can install on a 386 Compaq with 40GB hard drive, floppy drive, and only 2MB of RAM. No cd-rom, usb, or pcmcia. All the floppy distros that I have found all try to set up a Ramdrive larger than available memory. This machine was donated, so I do not wish to invest any money in it to get it going by buying additional memory, external cd-rom drives, etc.

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If this machine is behind a strong firewall, you will find at home using Slackware GNU/Linux 3.4, the last one featuring the lowmem install. It isn't really user friendly (you even miss the curses setup interface) but will run even on 2 MB.
(Obviously, forget X Windows: it requires at least 8 MB of RAM). I once had a guide about doing that; Google is your best friend.

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Memory for a 386 is essentially free these days. About a year back, I cleaned out my on hand computer repair supplies and tossed 10 sticks from that era. Perhaps you have a neighborhood geek that has some laying around?

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Linux can run on a 386 but a 386 is not a bad computer, it is a relic. You can probably get your hands on a better computer such as an 486 or a Pentium.
There are many Floppy-based Linux distributions, maybe some can run on your 386. Wikipedia has an article that lists many;
* <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniLinux" title="wikipedia.org">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniLinux</a wikipedia.org>

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I'd really put some memory in, 2Megs barely hold an uncompressed linux-kernel, not to mention some kind of shell.

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While it's not exactly Linux, you can install Minix on such a machine. I happen to have a Compaq 386 with 2 megs of memory and a 60 meg HDD. I've installed Minix on it and it works as a console-oriented OS just fine. With only 2 megs of memory, I had to run the Minix286 version, as the 386 version wanted 4 megs of memory (it might have run with only 2 megs, but I actually wanted to use it too). There's even a version that runs on the old XT (though it doesn't take advantage of 286+ protected-mode features for memory protection)

It's possible to browse the web (with a text-mode browser like Lynx), and if you know your HTML, you can write papers in vi (or whatever its non-vi text-editor is). It really makes you learn your nitty-gritty...things like classic vi (not vim), learning to use sed/awk/ed and the like, using "mail" to read your mail...all sorts of things. It's usable and you can even get extensions for serving web pages--it might even have CGI ability if you really looked hard, or wrote your own with the available C compiler.

Just a few ideas if you wanted a *nix-like OS on such an antique.

-gumnos

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Use freedos with opengem. There are many freeware dos programs available that can be used on freedos. <a href="http://www.freedos.org/" title="freedos.org">http://www.freedos.org/</a freedos.org> I don't think you have a enough memory for any linux installation. Minix might work but it doesn't have any productivity software. It is mostly a testing and education distro.

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***bugmenot login

i have to say, while i highly reccomend DSL - not for olllld machines, just old-er

it had a lot of trouble on a 120mhz packardbell i had layin around

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I think you meant the Compaq has a 40MB, not GB, hard disk. Personally, I think it's a very old and unusable system. It will be very hard to find a text based linux distribution that will work there, much less a graphic based one.

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Though some may object to the Opera browser on principle in that it is not GPL (though it is developed using the Qt toolset), it is a good performer on older hardware, and is way more fully featured than Dillo or even Firefox (sans extensions).

I used to run Gentoo Linux on an old PII 300Mhz Dell with 288Mb of RAM. The performance wasn't stellar (and compiling updates during an 'emerge -u world' slowed things down even more), but the machine was quite usable. In a pinch I could remotely run Openoffice or Mozilla on another, faster machine on my LAN using 'ssh -X'.

I have since retired the machine, but if I were to resurrect it I'd probably pick DSL.

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I recently had the task if finding an OS for a PII 233 with 64 MB ram and 1.2GB HD. I tried several distros mentioned here. I liked STX mostly for the nice desktop look and feel. The one distro that really made me sit up and notice was Damn Small Linux. It ran faster from the CD than STX or Vector did from the hard drive.

Well to be fair DSL runs entirely in RAM so of course it's faster although the bootup speed was impressive too. If you want your older computer to work as fast as possible then DSL is the way to go. The desktop is not as user friendly as some of the others but with a little coaching a newbie should have no problem using it.

The biggest difficulty I found was that more RAM would have made a big difference. Some of the distros say they will run on 64MB but you really don't want to listen to your HD spinning to swap data every time you switch applications. Of course I expect more out of a multi tasking OS today than I would have 7 or 8 years ago and that's no fault of any of these distros.

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Xbuntu - The Ubuntu attempt at a low power older machine replacement for W9x and NT boxes.

I used a 366 Gateway with 128MB ram and a 3 Gig hard drive. I loaded by Ubuntu CD and chose the server install and then followed the directions. It seems that for really low RAM use, they need to adopt the Damn Small Linux (DSL) route. But, it ran ok. I had extra RAM and got it all on less than 2GIG HD. I think it would have been OK with 64MB RAM, but not less than that (if anyone else has tried less then it would be interesting to hear your results). Basic install did not have OpenOffice (of course a huge memory hog), but AbiWork's newest versions supporting an ODT export feature was not even gettable in the respository yet. I have been told by a comment on another thread that the Dapper Drake version due out in April will have stuff that folks are looking for in Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu. I am looking forward to testing (note both of the Alpha Dapper Flight 4 tests of the live CD version of Kubutnu and Edubuntu had serious graphics problems on my Latitude C800 -a machine that ran the breezy badger Live CD like a charm, instead with these two alpha live cds booted into a screen where there were 3 screens overlayed each other and it was totally unsuable, for Alpha, well, this was expected, hopefully, that will be fixed by April 29th).

Note: I also took the 366 Gateway after the Xubuntu install and added lots of ram hungry parts such as open office, video stuff, etc... I used the Automatix installer for these (and it worked fine with Xubuntu):

<a href="http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563" title="ubuntuforums.org">http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=66563</a ubuntuforums.org>

So - the result was that for all this I needed 128MB of RAM (had 3 MB left over when running apps that I was testing). The 3 GIG of HD space was pretty stuffed, and I did not install all of the Automatix options at all... (but could do work, but of course there was not much room left over to store alot of graphical audio or video content, but was able to use external USB storage ok)... Xfce was quick enough... BUT - it was not as quick as running DSL with the " dsl toram " install command of course.

Xubuntu is the wrong name for this. It really needs to be with a number after it so that others can automate certain types of installs. For example: Xubuntu-128 (larger), Xubuntu-64 (medium), Xubuntu-32 (light)... like that!

As a replacement for W9x, on those old hardware boxes, right now, Xubuntu is not quite there. Maybe in April it will be?

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If the Xubuntu stuff were to come with security updating like the rest of the Ubuntu family, then that will be an advantage over some of the other lighter distros.

Right now, getting new versions and replacing the older installs (because of security notices) with a newer gets really old very very quickly (especially if having to do it for friends or relatives who have asked us about a new computer with security updates to replace their old W9x that is no longer supported by Microsoft)! The only hedge I have stopping the install of LINUX for every one I know, is that I know them, I have used SuSE 9.3 (supported by SuSE for 2 years), however, the newer Ubuntu Pre-Dapper (dapper goals) Edubuntu pages say they will support with upgrades and security updates each released edubuntu version for 3 years on desktop and 5 years on Servers.... WOW.

If the same level of upgrades and security updates were also extended to Xbuntu. Then what ever version Xubuntu-128, Xbuntu-64, or Xubuntu-32... would be a no brain replacement for those old Windows OS's at grandma's house that she only uses to check email, see pictures of the grand-kids, and check out some receipe sites.

For multi-media, Ram Rules. Xubuntu, with security updates, well that might tip the scales.

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Xubuntu, for the most part, is identical to the other Ubuntu versions, so almost all of the updates for one apply perfectly to the other. The only real difference is the desktop environment itself, and since Xubuntu is an officially released version along with the others the three/five years of support should apply to it as well.

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True - I've just installed Xubuntu on a PII400 with 128MB ram and a 4GB HDD (it also has a 64MB Leadtek 5200TD!! What a waste...).

Anyway, it's not a fast as I thought it would be. 128MB is being fully utilised. Right now there's nothing running on that box and it's got 15MB free, though is using 18MB virtual.

Would be good to see how a minimal Suse 10.1 running Xfce is compared.

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Xubuntu is nice, but replacing GNOME with Xfce only gets rid of some of the bloat. The Ubuntu base system with the 2.6 kernel etc takes up quite a lot of memory. I'm not sure whether it's all the services that are running by default, the kernel or what, but I have found I can use much less memory by building up from Debian stable (although Ubuntu is still my favourite distro for machines with more RAM!).

I recently installed Debian stable (sarge) on a 200Mhz Pentium with 80Mb of RAM. With the 2.4 kernel + XFree86 + Xfce 4.4beta + Firefox 1.0.4, I am using only ~32Mb of memory (excluding buffers)!
That's quite a difference, if you're happy installing Debian (which isn't difficult, really, if you are familiar with Linux). I had to compile the latest Xfce, but you could also get it by installing Debian unstable. Anyway, for your efforts, you get a full desktop environment on the latest version of a major distro. I personally find that much preferable to DSL etc for everyday use.

James.

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Have you tried ZenWalk? I made a post about it. It's very nice for older machines, and I have it running very well on a AMD K6-2 350MHz with 256MB SDRAM and a laptop with a Celeron 700MHz and 192MB SDRAM. In the laptop, it just flies.
It will problably not get all the attention that Xubuntu will when it's launched, but already has a nice set of packages to choose from. It's based on Slackware, so probably a lot of packages for Slackware will install fine.

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I've got a bunch of old Pentium-166's and Pentium-233's lying about, all of which have 32 to 64 MB of DRAM, Diamond Stealth64 (yes, the old, venerable Trio64 video chipset) video boards, and maybe 3.2GB hard disks.

They also have 10/100 NICs in them.

What this has allowed me to do is take every one of those old Pentiums and turn them into LTSP terminals. The only thing I needed to do was stick a boot ROM into the NIC ($15), and off I went. For those who don't like taking apart the box to do this, no problem. You can simply 'cat' the Rom-O-Matic boot image to either a floppy disk or the system's hard disk, and your box will net-boot just as if it had a boot ROM in the NIC. It's freely downloadable at <a href="http://www.rom-o-matic.net./" title="www.rom-o-matic.net">http://www.rom-o-matic.net./</a www.rom-o-matic.net>

Or, if you've got something a little newer (e. g. a Dell OptiPlex GX1, which came with Pentium II-266's and up), you don't even need that; they have PXE-booting already built into them. For those who haven't heard of that before, PXE-booting is another way to do netbooting; think of it as a standardized, multi-vendor way to do boot ROMs for network cards.

The LTSP server cost me $3000 to build, plus another $1000 for a decent Gig-E switch to run it on, and that server takes care of nearly 30 terminals. Each of those terminals feels like it's a Pentium 4/2GHz with a GB of DRAM. The operating system in my case is Debian Sarge, but you can use any distro you want.

It's great. My users, rather skeptical at first, now love it. The boss, who saved a boatload on the office upgrade, loves it too.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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What is interesting. Is that the Edubuntu Dapper release in April will install LTSP by default.

I have read on the Edubuntu site where I bumped into some emails, where some of the key folks in both the LTSP project and the K12LTSP project are working with, or as part of, the Edubuntu Team to help make a LTSP install be so easy that you don't even have to know anything about LINUX to get it going! That will be something to see.

I am typing this now on the Edubuntu Live CD in a VMWare Session. It is working fine so far. I just tested the Kubuntu in VMware and it worked fine. The first app I opened was Gwenview it worked ok (but, the plug-ins were not installed so I could not test sending photos to the email client (selectable) where it reduces the size of the pictures to easy to send size, and opens the email client and attaches the reduced-in-size photos automaticly)! But, both the Live CDs worked fine so far (alpha 4 release so I expect to hit some rough spots)!

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Why do VMware Linux Guest loose clock time?

The Edubuntu test (and the Breezy badger running in VMWare sessions) all seem to lose about a half a daay of time, or more, PER DAY. The clock never works right and has to be manually updated all the time with VMWare... oh- I can't seem to find instructions for installing VMware tools in the buntu guest...? But, when I finally get that figured out... time still does not work right (using latest VMware 5.5).

Does Xen virtual machine also lose time like the VMWare guests do (same with Fedora, and SuSE)?

Hmmm, seems to be a bit of a problem, not having one's clock be right!

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I had this happening to me with Fedora Core2 on a dual boot machine. In Windows I used local time, but in FC2, I was using Greenwich Standard Time. Every time I used FC2 after having used Windows, my clock was a few hours off. The problem may be that all of your computers aren't using the same time standard. This is pretty easy to change, but I've forgotten the command I used.

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Yea - There are ways to correct this. It seems that the problem (but, VMware does not say that it is totally correctable). Per below, it seems the new Linux Kernel uses the clock differently.

This is from VMWare support, and with google there are others that have written about this PROBLEM.
One really wonders why VMWare is not addressing this directly?

Clock in a Linux Guest Runs More Slowly or Quickly Than Real Time

            Question

            Why does the clock in my Linux guest consistently run more slowly or more quickly than real world time?

            Answer

Linux guest operating systems keep time by counting timer interrupts. Unpatched 2.4 and earlier kernels program the virtual system timer to request clock interrupts at 100Hz (100 interrupts per second). 2.6 kernels, on the other hand, request interrupts at 1000Hz — ten times as often. Some 2.4 kernels modified by distribution vendors to contain 2.6 features also request 1000Hz interrupts, or in some cases, interrupts at other rates, such as 512Hz.

Furthermore, an SMP-capable Linux kernel requests additional timer interrupts from the virtual local APIC timer. An SMP-capable kernel running on a one-CPU system generates twice as many total timer interrupts as the corresponding UP kernel, while such a kernel running on a two-CPU system requests three times as many. In general, an SMP-capable kernel running on CPUs requests times as many interrupts per second as a UP kernel. For example, an unmodified 2.6 Linux kernel running on a two-CPU virtual machine requests a total of 3000 clock interrupts per second.

When a guest asks for more than 1000 clock interrupts per second, it can be difficult for the virtual machine to keep up, especially if other applications are running on the host at the same time. This can cause the clock in the guest operating system to fall so far behind real time that it is unable to catch up. The overhead of delivering so many virtual clock interrupts can also hurt guest performance and increase host CPU consumption.

It can also be difficult for the guest operating system to field 1000 clock interrupts per second. Even on real hardware, clock interrupts are sometimes lost because the operating system is busy for more than 1 millsecond and another clock interrupt comes in before the previous one was handled. Linux 2.6 contains code to detect such "lost ticks" and correct for them. Unfortunately, this code can trigger the correction spuriously in some cases, resulting in the Linux clock running more quickly than real time. This problem happens more often in a virtual machine than on real hardware, and can cause noticeable time gains. In some cases, the guest clock has been observed to run more than 10% more quickly than real time.
Workarounds

If your Linux 2.6 guest's clock is running too quickly, it indicates a problem with lost tick correction. Apply one of the workarounds in the section "Preventing the Clock from Running Too Quickly."

If your guest's clock is running too slowly, it indicates that the host's real timer interrupt rate can't keep up with the guest's virtual timer interrupt rate. There are two approaches to dealing with the problem: either decrease the guest's rate or increase the host's rate. Apply one of the workarounds in the section "Preventing the Clock from Running Too Slowly." Also apply one of the workarounds for running too quickly, because correcting the first problem often reveals the second one.

This url has corrections (albiet it still does not work correctly)!

<a href="http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=xt1o2SZh&p_lva=&p_faqid=1420&p_created=1093994398&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTEyOCZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PWd1ZXN0IHRpbWUmcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT03JnBfcHJvZF9sdmwxPTM3JnBfcHJvZF9sdmwyPX5hbnl_JnBfc29ydF9ieT1kZmx0JnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=" title="vmware.com">http://www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.<nobr>p<wbr></nobr> hp?p_sid=xt1o2SZh&p_lva=&p_faqid=1420&p_created=1<nobr>0<wbr></nobr> 93994398&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3d<nobr>f<wbr></nobr> Y250PTEyOCZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PWd1ZXN0IHRpbWUmcF9zZ<nobr>W<wbr></nobr> FyY2hfdHlwZT03JnBfcHJvZF9sdmwxPTM3JnBfcHJvZF9sdmw<nobr>y<wbr></nobr> PX5hbnl_JnBfc29ydF9ieT1kZmx0JnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=</a vmware.com>

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Dosemu has the clock issues quite nice documented in it's sample configuration file. And it's same for any virtualized or emulated hardware. It's about performance counters and timer interrupt. And dynamic nature of performance on the virtual cpu mesured in true world real time. Maybe if the emulated/virtualized machine did cooperate with cpufreq or something similar...

Otherwise you need something like ntpdate(+cron), ntpd, hwclock --adjust or anything similar (named in order of my preference).

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I ran gentoo on a pentium 120 with 64 megs of ram as a firewall. It worked great. The only issue was upgrades meant rebuild which were slow. As the machine was mostly idle anyway, that was really not much of a problem.

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Same here, but I relied on ccache and distCC to make compilation faster. DistCC really helps!

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You could just as easily install Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT or maybe even 2000 on your old hardware. These OSes worked great when that hardware was new and they will work just as well today.

But, the fact is that most people are opting to install OSes with new features and application. OSes like Windows XP or even Vista. Those people would want comparable versions of Linux not the crippled router/firewall distros discussed in the article. No, those people would want the likes of mainstream Linux distros so that they can run the latest versions of KDE or Gnome or other GLXy window managers and all of the applications that go along with them. Those distros' requirements are right up there with modern versions of Windows. Observe the likes of <a href="http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/release-notes/fc4/#sn-hardware-reqs" title="redhat.com">Fedora Core 4</a redhat.com>, <a href="http://en.opensuse.org/Installation_(x86)" title="opensuse.org">OpenSuse</a opensuse.org>, <a href="http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/en/individuals/products/2006discoverylx/hardware" title="mandriva.com">Mandriva</a mandriva.com>, <a href="http://www.ubuntu.com/download/releasenotes/510#head-6f72ee538d799395f5febea99c08b3e85a14867b" title="ubuntu.com">Ubuntu</a ubuntu.com> and so many more.

Most people want the desktops with all the eye candy and transparency. They don't typically want it to run headless.

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So - would those old Microsoft OS be supported for these? No!

The key to success for a thin distro is security updates. You get these security notices posted that are important... yep, every so often and as a distro user the next thing you start to wonder if the geeks that put the thing togeather, are paying attention and cleaning up the house when they need to (SuSe has this updates notifications at least twice a week so you know they are focused on both the front door and the back door)... Of course, those geeks that are runnning their own favorite distro version have it so custom patched togeather that it is no longer main stream.

The sweet creme on the cake for main stream users is that they want support for security and virus problems. Linux does and will have those issues that will pop up that will need tending to. How well it is done, well, that is what they really want, everything else is meat and potatos.

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I have run several distro's on my old machine (celeron 266) like slackware and arch linux, with the help of light window managers and software. Never does it feel "crippled" in any way as compared to windows xp or other kde/gnome distro's. Sure, the eye candy is absent, but having transparency effects and a lot of animation requires new hardware, there are no two ways about that. One can even use a window manager like enlightenment to get a high level of eye candy on older machines.

Infact, people can even run fedore on old machines, as long as they don't use kde or gnome, and stick with xfce/ede.

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Sure, the eye candy is absent, but having transparency effects and a lot of animation requires new hardware, there are no two ways about that.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...
Infact, people can even run fedore on old machines, as long as they don't use kde or gnome, and stick with xfce/ede.

So we agree, then! They can cripple, or restrict if the word cripple offends you, their capabilities and run on older hardware but, if they want the good stuff, the new stuff, they have to get new hardware, regardless of whether they use Windows or Linux. That was my point. That was also Microsoft's point but, the article, like so many Linux apologists, is attempting to FUDge its way out of that description by offering up obscure and 'feature free' distros. None of the distros discussed in the article can be compared to Windows XP. None! The old hardware use relies on limiting features regardless of what OS you choose.

Your 266 Celeron with "slackware and arch linux, with the help of light window managers and software" can't be compared to the full featured goodness of Windows XP with 3D acceleration and DirectX9 and MS Office and Photoshop and DVD player and file sharing and whizbang curly-whirly ooh-wow-shiny apps. OpenSuse with KDE and GLX might be comparable but, you can't run OpenSuse on your 266 Celeron. Arguement deflated. Case closed.

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How is running XFCE crippling anything? I have a machine with an Athlon XP 2600+, 768MB RAM and 300GB HDD space (hardly an old box) and I run XFCE on it, simply because it is a really nice, productivity-improving window manager.

Linux is all about choice. Choosing a window manager that better suits you (or your hardware) is not "crippling", it's just making a choice.

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"Obscure" distributions? You must not use Linux very often. All the distributions reviewed are very well known and fully-functional.

And good luck running DirectX9 and MS Office and Photoshop and DVD playback software and 3D acceleration on a 266 Celeron under XP...you'd probably have better luck running it under WINE in Linux<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)

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You are overstating your case. Of course you can't get resource intensive guis like kde or gnome to run on very modest hardware. However, you can trim down and modify linux in a very fine grained way to retain much more functionality on modest hardware; that's the real point here. That option is not available to anywhere near the same degree on windows. This is due to windows monolithic closed design as compared to linux's open modular design.

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You're right; you could. Of course, you could also install (as Linus called it) MS-DOG, FreeDOS, OS/2, or any other OS that runs on your hardware. Sadly, there are lot of people in the world (not the US/UK, for example) who cannot afford this for individual home desktops. I've traveled to quite a few countries in which this is the case.

The beauty of Free Software is that you do not *have* to upgrade your software if you don't want. I ran XFce on Slackware on an older laptop for years, and it ran just fine until the hardware itself at last gave up the ghost. I do admit that I like my Pentium 4, 2.2GHz, 1GB DRAM laptop that replaced it, though.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-) It is currently running CentOS 4.2.

For corporations or schools, though, even in our "filthy rich" United States of America, LTSP really is the answer. With an investment of about 1/8th of what it would cost to upgrade all the HW/SW of a Windows or Macintosh lab, you can stick in a LTSP server, re-use all those old boxes, *and* give your users the eye candy and speed. Oh, and you're largely free of most security exploits out there, and unless you're running WINE, you're *totally* free of Windows exploits (even then, most are mitigated to a very large degree).

#

This is a very silly and pointless post. Nobody ever said you could use old, underpowered hardware to run the latest 3D games and watch DVDs. All that was said is that it is possible to run old hardware with an operating system that has security updates, understands recent file formats, and doesn't hang or crash every 30 minutes.

Have you run Windows 98, Me, or 95 lately? These operating systems were never great. I booted up the Windows 98 partition on my old laptop a while back and it was very painful to use for any period of time after being accustomed to recent Linux desktops and Windows 2000. I had forgotten how often it would flake out, even though it was perfectly clean of malware (malware will cause even a modern Windows all kinds of problems, but it can be mostly avoided with the proper steps). NT is a significant improvement in stability, but is still unmaintained.

The fact is most people don't care about eye candy on their desktop, but just want to surf the Internet, do some word processing, use a chat program, and perhaps play some games. The only one of these that may require new hardware is playing up to date games. However, if you want some eye candy and transparency you can get more with a lightweight window manager in Linux than you can with an old version of Windows. The eye candy you won't get (in either case, generally) is smooth animation when dragging and resizing.

I use a lightweight desktop in Linux even on modern computers. Why? It is because to me, the desktop is mostly just a way to get to my applications. As long as it performs this function adequately enough, it's fine, and I don't want it taking resources away from my apps.

The point is that you can run Linux on this hardware to make an old system still useful for many things that you would like to do now, and it will be stable and still be able to read<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.png,<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.svg files, and newer<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.doc files, etc. The point is not that Linux makes this hardware as powerful as a cutting edge machine. People saying that Linux can prolong the useful life of old hardware is true. Claiming that this means people are saying that Linux makes old hardware just as powerful as new hardware is a straw man argument and is silly.

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Mind you, I'm no expert. But it seems you missed the point of the article.

Ultimately, this is all about choice. On one hand, there is the choice to run M$ EOL (End of Life) products with no additional support, and lag behind. Then there's the choice to run "bleeding edge" software and suffer performance hits (but at least the hardware is still supported). Then there's the third alternative; most of the more established linux distributions provide multiple choices to various tasks, Xfce & gtk2 as opposed to GNOME and KDE, provides for a lightweight desktop. Dillo is an excellent browser alternative if you're browsing static pages. Even the X window system is modular. The idea that low-end machines are constrained to obsolete and EOL software is not only ignorant, but financially and environmentally irresponsible. In my line of work, I periodically "refresh" equipment from engineering stations to a manufacturing floor. I guess what I'm saying is that low-end hardware can be viable in task-based environments, it's all a matter of what you want to do with them.

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hmmmm, I run fedora core on a discarded ibm thinkpad with a celeron 400 mhz cpu. all i did was upgrade the memory and hd from spare parts. it does everything I need. I still prefer using it over XP. i still can use rdesktop to access my xp box, vnc to access a mac box, and web browser to access the citrix server at work.

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VMWare Workstation allows you to test low power environments. Albiet on a faster processor, but, with the guest set-up you can set up small virtual disk drive (like a low power machine), also can set up low RAM use for the client as well (like a low power machine).

After the install the disk drive part can't be changed... but, the RAM can be added to and subtracted from. Meaning that you can indeed test different RAM size environments for different distros, and can run LIVE CDs too! SO this is a good way to test DSL, Puppy, Xbuntu, and the others like the Slackware ones too!

Now, to fix/address the CLOCK problem that shows up with VMWare, even in v.5.5x? Fix means, not having to do it for every stinking Linux install I test.

Any answers?

Also - not all distros are friendly and get going in VMware?

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Why do people allways say that debian isn't a distro for beginners? And why didn't you mentioned that at slackware?

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debian was the first linux (*nix) distro I ever used, and in a 1994 MAcintosh (performa 5300, NuBus 40 meg Ram), which is not even officially supported. Debian Installed right away with the nubus kernel, and blackbox was
responsive. Served well as a small server

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Debian is a great distribution, and the installation program it uses is GREATLY improved, and has improved in every recent version - from Potato to Woody, then to Sarge, and now as we move toward Etch being the stable release. My biggest beef with the standard Debian installer is that it is way too chatty, and it asks too many questions at too many points during the installation, instead of asking all questions at once, then installing without interruption. I have suggested improvements along these lines several times, and wonder if I should bother because I get back answers like use the automatic installation tool (where you put all installation responses into a file, then let it go). That's fine, but that is never an answer for a beginner. Even for me, a veteran installer, since I use a 686 based platform, I'd rather just start with a semi commercial distribution based on Debian, answer three or four questions and go. I believe that even though the Debian project supports numerous architectures, with a bit more work, the installer could be streamlined to ask all of its questions at once, then install.

Still, the rap that Debian isn't for beginners is probably too harsh. It just isn't the easiest thing for beginners, but I don't see it as any more difficult than Slackware; in fact, Debian configures displays and network interfaces better than anything else I know of, and Slackware is weak in those areas.

With a little bit of work and less excuse making, Debian could be the best, period.

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I meant to add that Debian can be installed with a number of different kernels that are suited to the type and age of the processor that you are using. Few other operating systems or distributions can say that. Linux can, and Debian can.

Also, Debian has among the largest variety of desktop and window managers available, ranging from minimalist to gargantuan, and a wide range in between. Debian does a great job of populating the menus automatically for each of the window managers, which makes ones like fvwm, Fluxbox, Blackbox, IceWM and others easier to get into, instead of having to manually edit resource configuration files just to get a decently populated navigational menu. Big win for Debian on this point.

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I run Debian Sarge on a PII 266 with 128 MB of Ram (i added 64 megs to the original 64) with a 5.2 hd.

I did a minimal install, skipped adding software till the very end, and installed them with apt-get.

I chose light apps and a light window manager (IceWM). I installed x-window-system-core aterm menu icewm xfe xchat xzgv firefox opera ee abiword sudo unzip apmd bastille xscreensaver numlockx

I commented out 4 ttys in<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/etc/inittab to save memory, (only use 2 now), chose lightweight themes on my browsers, configured icewm to launch my apps with keybindings and have no complaints, i ended up with a light (686 MB of space used) and a pretty fast OS.

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I've been running Debian on a Pentium 233 (64MB RAM) since the days of Slink, and it is still running well. I've just used apt to upgrade it whenever a new release comes out, and I haven't noticed a slow down at all with successive releases.

I've been running IceWM for most of that time, and it is a nice WM. The main issue I have had is that browsers are becoming increasingly bloated. Opera is OK, but takes a while to start, and good old Netscape 4 is as fast (and buggy) as ever. My usual choice is Opera. I just start it up and keep it running until I log out.

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this must be in the posts already, but the article is all about the desktop.

personally, i've been repurposing old harware with linux as file/web/mail/shell servers for years: 'igor' in the authors article is pretty close to overkill for a lot of low volume servers.

what are the chances of getting win 2k3 server on there and running active directory/exchange/iis ?

i mean, all in the name of a fair comparison<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)

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I work for a company that produces software, and we have an automatic update feature in our programs. The server that offers the updates is a Compaq Pretty-sorry-o K6-200 with 32MB of RAM. Just enough to load a stripped down Debian Sarge, Apache2, and sshd. Works great, haven't had a single complaint or failed download.

Personally, I run Aurora Linux on a Sun Ultra1-C3D, Ultrasparc I-200MHz with 192MB of RAM, and that machine is great, even with X and Gnome. I also have a Sun SS10MP with four 55MHz Ross Hypersparc processors and 128MB of RAM. That old machine still holds its own as a nice box to play with. Next I've gotta get my Sun SS IPC with a 25MHz sparc and 24MB of RAM running RedHat 5.2...

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Other architectures are good - I run Debian/GNU on a Sparcstation 4 - with SCSI very nippy. Would also strongly recommend XFCE4 - not just for slower/older machines - a truly beautiful piece of software.

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You said it, brother. I have a K12LTSP server that boots three kinds of terminals: x86, PowerMac 5260 (yes, the NuBus one), and Sun Ultra 5...ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY. I even use a PMac 5400 as a "chubby client" LTSP terminal; it boots Yellow Dog Linux and then issues an XDMCP query to the K12LTSP server. All work well, though the PowerMacs 5260 and 5400 feel a little more sluggish than the other two because of their 10Mb network cards (the x86 and UltraSPARC clients have 10/100 NICs in them). I demo'ed this at Thomas Jefferson HS for Science and Technology here in the Washington, DC area last year, and Jeff Elkner (Mr. Edubuntu) happened to hear about it and show up; he'd never seen a PowerMac as a LTSP client! Pretty cool stuff. BTW, Sun Ultra 5's make very fine LTSP clients.

As for desktops, I *still* have a Sun Ultra 5 (512MB DRAM, 360MHz CPU, 20GB hard disk) running GNU/Linux. It started out a few years ago running SuSE 7.3, went to Aurora Linux, and finally ended up w/ Debian Sarge. This was an experiment to see if an old Ultra 5 was still useable in the "real world" (it is). My Power Mac G3 with a 400MHz CPU and 256MB DRAM has been a joy to use over the last year (runs Yellow Dog Linux 4.0.1 at the moment). A couple of months ago, I upgraded the DRAM to 1GB, since it cost me a grand total of $15 (USA) to do so. It ran well before; it runs even better now.

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I'm typing this on a Sun Sparc 2. NOT an Ultra 2,
a Sparc 2. A 15-year-old Sparc 2. It's running
OpenBSD, beautifully.

No, I'm not running some heavyweight
desktop environment like KDE or GNOME: I'm just
running X, with the icewm window manager, which
furnishes a perfectly adequate environment.

I routinely run Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, DSL and
others) on old hardware. I routinely OpenBSD,
NetBSD, and FreeBSD on old hardware. This rarely
poses a problem, _unless_ I do something silly
like expect a 90 MHz Pentium to run OpenOffice
or somesuch. (AbiWord, however, works.) I'm
far from alone: lots of people are doing this,
and many of them are getting a lot more performance out of their boxes -- that is, they've
taken the time to performance-tune them because
they need to.

It's really appalling that anyone who is even
minimally knowledgeable about computing is stupid
enough to believe the FUD from M$, thus necessitating that someone waste their time
proving something we've all known is true for many years. Quite honestly, if you're THAT stupid,
then go run Windows. You'll fit right in.

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That brings back fond memorys. Up until 2000, I had a Sparc 1 running OpenBSD and blackbox on my desk. Worked just fine.

At home right now I have a firewall which is a Pentium 166 with 32MB RAM, and the web server on the DMZ leg is a Compaq 486/66 with 32MB RAM. Both running OpenBSD, neither taxed at all. The PCI bus in the firewall does make a difference however.

Main server is much better: 900 MHz pentium on a Supermicro board and 512MB RAM. But it runs sendmail, imap, apache w. SSL, Samba, NFS, ntp, dns, CVS, but only ever shows any load at all when doing OS builds. It also regularily runs Mozilla and displays it to the laptop (see below).

(I also have 2 200MHz pentium laptops that are perfectly usable running Window Maker. I use LyX and Firefox just fine; though a little slow to start up.)

The only machine that needs and uses any horsepower is the one Windows machine. That uses up 256MB RAM just running the OS, an instance of Mozilla and one of Word.

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I have to disagree in one point. Debian really has a hard time detecting display settings, without the Xserver configured it's a real showstopper for a newbie.

In many other ways Debian is very userfriendly, for example the localisation is really nice and dist-upgrading to the next version rocks!

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Linux with just the commandline will run on almost anything, but running graphical X applications is more demanding. I have some really old laptops I would like to run X applications on. Don't really even need window managers, just going to launch a couple of apps.

The other is a pentium with only 48MB mem. X and icewm run real slowly with Damn Small Linux.. I wonder if I could help it somehow.

The other is a 486 with 4MB ! it's almost hopeless, but I might have some success with microlinux or basiclinux though. It's fun to try.

Any better ideas anyone?

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>The other is a pentium with only 48MB mem. X and icewm run real slowly with Damn Small Linux.. I wonder if I could help it somehow.


  Check the speed on your CD drive. I've run DSL with a pentium and 40MB of ram, and it's not bad. Of course, that's purely subjective, but if you're running the livecd and the cd drive is as old as the machine, it may be the bottleneck. 1x cdrom drives make frequent appearances in the old Pentium boxes I run into, and 1x = floppy speed.

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Good point!

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Yep.


    <a href="http://www.ltsp.org/" title="ltsp.org">http://www.ltsp.org/</a ltsp.org>

Since you're talking about multiple computers here, I'm assuming you have some kind of network. Just stand up a box w/ some decent power (say, 1GB DRAM and a Pentium III-1GHz) for your amount of boxes running simultaneously). Kit it with a 10/100 card, and you're off to the races. Beyond 10 boxes in your setup, consider a Gig-E card on your server (clients *don't* need Gig-E here). Essentially, your old computers will be running a bare minimal (and I really mean that) GNU/Linux system with X11 and nothing else.

Note that your "hopeless" 486 becomes useful once again in this setup. Just plop 32MB DRAM and a 10/100 card in it, or even a 10Mb card (3Com 3C509's work very well here). I have run a 386-33--yes, the 80386 at 33MHz--in such a setup with a VESA Local Bus video card, serial mouse, and a 3C509 NIC. What allowed it to work was the 32MB DRAM. Graphics performance was, as you might expect, not exactly stellar, but for Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, and apps like that, it was just fine. I was a little surprised that it worked at all, let alone actually *BE USEFUL*, which it was. Just over a year ago, the 386's DRAM, after 12 years of faithful service, at last gave up the ghost. I paid $1,090 for that machine in 1992, and, with DRAM and hard disk upgrades along the way, it has gone through every version of MS-DOS from v2.1 on, every version of OS/2 from v2.1 on, Windows NT 3.50 and 3.51, Windows 95, Coyote Linux, NetBSD, and finally LTSP. It was the box I first learned networking, operating systems, and partitioning on. I'd say I more than got my money's worth.

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Thanks for the interesting answer. I've toyed with LTSP and I love it's possibilities!

However, since the machines are ageold laptops, there isn't much of a chance of hardware upgrades.
I have a NIC for the pentium that works with DSL, for the 486 all I can come up with is a serial/parallel null cable. Anyway, for my purposes these laptops would be portable workhorses in a networkless environment.

I guess Freedos can't run my 32bit Java applications, it might otherwise be a nice platform for many things, so the best way around would be to code those all over again in C.
Thinking realistically, this is just an academic problem that newer more powerfull technology has already solved, but it's nice to have a tinkering hobby.

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Linux is fantastic for older hardware. All I use is older hardware. I ran my website and a hosted weblog comments system(with about 3000 users) on a 486 using Debian and Apache for about a year. I've since moved the site onto a pentium 166 with 48MB of ram. It's been running fine for a year and a half on that machine. Could I do that with Microsoft IIS? I don't think so. I use an IBM thinkpad PII 400 MHz 128MB for most of my day to day computing. Again, I'm using debian with GNOME and Icewm, and while sometimes it takes a bit long to load programs like firefox, it runs well enough. I had been using the same setup on a PII 233 before I upgraded to 400. It ran a bit slower but did what I needed.

Jesse <a href="http://jsoft.ca/" title="jsoft.ca">http://jsoft.ca/</a jsoft.ca>

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Last week i needed to install linux on a 300mhz laptop with wireless
The problem with DSL and puppy is that they aren't exactly geared up to be a 'normal' linux system.
I tried DSL, Puppy, Vector, but had problems with the old version of ndiswrapper and the 2.4.xx kernel
Eventually I decided upon Ubuntu server install + fluxbox - an up to date distribution which worked well (except the X server was more fiddly to get working than with the other lightweight guys). Once working, I am pleased I went for ubuntu.

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How right you are. Terra Soft Solutions claims to run 40 different Web sites off of a single PowerPC server running at 400MHz. I'm sure it's running with no GUI and likely running headless, but it illustrates the point.

My mail server is an AMD K6-2/300 with (now) 256MB DRAM. It actually uses less than 64MB, according to top. I happen to be running a very old distro, Red Hat Linux 6.2, so obviously I manage my security updates manually for this box (./configure, make, make install). It runs the latest versions of Postfix, Courier-IMAP, OpenSSL, and OpenSSH; being an Internet server, it of course does not run X11. But for an extended power outage (two days--my UPS dies after about 7 hours), that box would have well over 400 days of uptime, and it would've been even longer if not for a kernel security upgrade. And no, unlike its Windows Server / Exchange Server predecessor, it has never been r00ted, despite taking (and stopping) between 50,000 and 100,000 attacks against it every day.

Oh, my firewall setup consists of two Sun Ultra 5 "pizza boxes" running OpenBSD in stateful-failover mode, complete w/ DMZ. Each of these boxes is actually more powerful than the mail server and thus WAY overkill for stateful packet filtering. I just did it 'cause it's fun, and to say I could do it.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

And no, you *can't* do this with Microsoft *Anything*...not without getting 0wn3d within five minutes. Not only is Microsoft IIS, etc. inherently insecure, but if you want to run the current, so-called "secure" (HAHAHAHAHA!) versions that actually get updates, you need BIG, BEEFY HARDWARE, at least compared to what I, and the top poster of this thread, are running.

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If you actually used that with localized filesystem and localized scandisk (=localized windows) you would stumble across several stability problems caused by scandisk "cleaning" the FAT filesystem in it's uniqe localized way wiping parts of the linux here and there not even umssync could handle that.

Well and with old kernels 2.2 and early 2.4 there were several problems which might be fixed nowdays but are real pain and obstacle for using the linux on umsdos as root partition.

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"DeLi Linux stands for "Desktop Light" Linux. It is a Linux Distribution for old computers, from 486 to Pentium MMX 166 or so. It's focused on desktop usage. It includes email clients, graphical web browser, an office package with word processor and spreadsheet, and so on. A full install, including XFree and development tools, needs not more than 250 MB of harddisk space.

The trick is, that DeLi Linux uses only "lightweight" alternative software. If you are looking for the newest KDE, GNOME or Mozilla, DeLi Linux will not make you happy. The test computer is a 486 laptop with 16 MB RAM, and all apps which comes with DeLi Linux are running smoothly.

"Why the heck make a Linux for such old crap ?" you may ask. There are still many computers around with the configuration mentioned above, it would be a shame to waste them. Many people simply cannot buy a 2 Ghz machine for 1000 $ or more, but they can buy a Pentium I 133 for 50 $ from ebay. Many people are still happy with the computer they bought five years ago. Especially in the so-called third world, new hardware is not affordable. Well, there's still Windows95 or Windows 3.1, which will run on these machines, too. But these versions are not supported by MS anymore, they are no longer in production, and finally, you will not get any software for this old Windows version."

<a href="http://www.delilinux.de/" title="delilinux.de">http://www.delilinux.de/</a delilinux.de>

There are a few other distros like this that are for much older machines (which I can't remember their names). If you have 486's, you should check DeLi out. Their test machine is a 486 with 16mb of ram. So if you have a Pentium II 233, it will be blazing fast<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:P

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Now let's see how we discover a few bald patches!

When the men of the Microsoft argue that the only way of maintaining in activity the ancient machines is to use the software of the Microsoft, I disagree completely. Otherwise let's see. The first machine in which I installed the Linux was 486 with a memory of elephant (at that time 4 megabytes it was fantastic). Defacto, was a gratifying challenge to see a machine with an operating system that was really multitasting and multiuser (thing that the ms-dos was completely less that). Well, truth, the nucleus of the kernel even has capacity of multiplexing, but unfortunately the lads of the Microsoft, or for lack of knowledges or for any other motive, it added the nucleus code that has not and uses not this funcionality nor it haven this capacity.

I confess what was that that took me trying to find in another operating system. There was the xenix of the Santa Cruz Operation (Microsoft) but at an exorbitant price. Today when a pc with the OS of the Microsoft crashes on you and it is completely frozen, the mouse is still the only thing that works. The explanation is as for me the result of the effects of the choose of options of the microsoft. My pentium II with a processor to 350 Mhz and with 128 Mb de Ram it already had the Linux with X-windows and I confess that now with the Windows 2000, I think that it is around 3 times slower than before. (one day you gave I get tired of crazy slowness and install the Linux again (Red hat or Suse).

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Just one point. Unless you are trying to configure multiple network intefaces on a Slackware box, it is very easy. So if you are talking about multiple network interfaces, you probably have a point, but when it comes to a single network inteface, Slackware seems as easy as anything that bothers to ask you whether or not you want to use DHCP (and doesn't just assume that you do).

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After searching through the various distributions for one that would restore functionality to a 233 MHz Pentium II laptop with 96 MB installed RAM nicely, I modded a SLAX Popcorn image and found it the most to my liking and aims. I call it SimpleSlax, and the 120 MB iso download with notes can be found at my <a href="http://scattershot.wickedtribe.org/" title="wickedtribe.org">project page</a wickedtribe.org>.

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<a href="http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html" title="knopper.net">Knoppix</a knopper.net> is a nice choice if you're short on disk space and are OK with a no login screen. The nice thing about it is that the cramfs allows a reasonably complete set of software in 700MB (CD version), and a just-about-everything install in ~ 3GB (DVD version) -- and you can install it on a FAT partition, or even an NTFS partition. For persistence, I then mount a HD partition onto the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>/home/knoppix directory.

I also have instructions on my website for <a href="http://www.bcgreen.com/knoppix/" title="bcgreen.com">how to boot knoppix from grub</a bcgreen.com>. It includes instructions for doing a netboot installation via grub -- which is good for machines with less than 800MB free -- just use the spare space for swap.

I've used it on machines as old as a P100 w/64MB.

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Check out ZenWalk (formerly MiniSlack), based on Slackware and using Xfce. It runs very well on a AMD K6-2 350MHz with 256MB SDRAM. I like it very much, and you already have a really nice set of packages avilable in their repository. Highly recomended.
<a href="http://www.zenwalk.org/" title="zenwalk.org">http://www.zenwalk.org/</a zenwalk.org>

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Nice story. IMHO this is a very important subject, espcially when regarding the environmental friendlyness of computers.

But I'm missing one or two such distributions I found quite useful:

Besides Debian (which runs on <a href="http://fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de/~abe/w5/azka.html" title="uni-sb.de">computers from 84 MHz to 500 MHz</a uni-sb.de> here — I don't need faster computers) I've also got Desktop Light Linux running on an 486 DX2/50 laptop.

<a href="http://www.delilinux.de/" title="delilinux.de">Desktop Light (DeLi) Linux</a delilinux.de> initially based on Slackware and is a Linux distribution especially made for old PCs around the 486/Pentium 1 generation (386 shall work, too, but probably quite slow). The very nice thing about DeLi Linux is, that it only contains low-resource applications.

The other distribution aimed at old PCs I plan to test, is <a href="http://www.ubuntulite.org/" title="ubuntulite.org">Ubuntu Lite</a ubuntulite.org>, since Ubuntu itself is everything else but low-resource.

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If Firefox runs slow and Dillo does not support https the Kazehakase might be a GOOD choice!
It is based and gecko engine and works like a flow on 64MB ram and 233 Mhz machine (Debian Etch Xfce).

Lightweight Thunderbird like mail client was already mentioned: Sylpheed.

Enjoy old hardware :)

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I am looking for a linux distro that will take advantage of a splendid old laptop, 15" screen, but Intel mmx233, yet USB connectors. Looked at Puppy, but download seemed too labour-intensive. Any advice?

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i just can't toss a laptop i spent $1,000 on when it was new, even if it is 8 years old. Running redhat 8 now, but would like firefox, but can't do the updates on it. I'll look into debia-sarge, xbuntu, ubuntu lite. had display toruble on some smaller distros. this is a compaq presario 1244, amd k6 400, one usb port luckily, since the cdrom internal is dead. Nice challenge installing stuff.

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