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That's such bullshit. If you want to learn Linux, you use LFS. Anything else is for posers and babies.

You're not paying for this racoon we are setting loose in your kitchen

I don't remember anyone forcing me to use a systemd distro.

Exactly. Systemd is mainly something that allows the ford versus chevy crew to get outraged about.

I guess they got tired of the text editor wars.

It isn't like there are no options if a person doesn't like systemd. In fact, for the most discriminating Linux cognoscenti, they can roll their own, with not a thing to disturb their delicate sensibilities : http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

KDE has never made that mistake. KDE is still faithful as traditional desktop. KDE4 is part of KDE, official release, I'm not sure what were you implying to. You can't say the same with Cinnamon and MATE with their relation to Gnome.

Gee, a "faithful" Linux UI? Using Mate at the moment, and liking it, if it turns to shit, I'll just use something else.

That's the great thing about Linux. If something makes your blood boil, say systemd or unity, or even a GUI in the first place - there's always an option. And if nothing available suits, you can always roll your own. http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Linux From Scratch would be by far the fastest and most efficient thing you could put on there. http://www.linuxfromscratch.or... It's also the most powerful in terms of customisation.

That was an easy one to answer. Give us something harder next time, like a requirement to do something useful with your OS :-)

I'd expect that most of them are not distro-based but rather LFS-based: http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

I'm disappointed in you to not include such a link in a post about books.

Check out Linux From Scratch. I go through the book once or twice a year.

LFS: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable/LFS-BOOK-8.0.pdf
LFS (SystemD): http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable-systemd/LFS-BOOK-8.0-systemd.pdf

I'm disappointed in you to not include such a link in a post about books.

Check out Linux From Scratch. I go through the book once or twice a year.

LFS: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable/LFS-BOOK-8.0.pdf
LFS (SystemD): http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/downloads/stable-systemd/LFS-BOOK-8.0-systemd.pdf

Just follow the linux from scratch guide

Nonsense. The problem is that the end user does not know what they are actually doing.

So, teach them by letting them install Linux from scratch.

Once they have done that, the end users will really *know* what they are doing and help desk jobs will be the true joy Babbage intended it to be.

That's so 1990's. Here's an updated Linux book. Enjoy!

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/lfs/

So they build their own distro which is customized to their exact requirements.

Anybody who tries to assert that doing this would be "free" is a fool, or a liar. They may not be paying licenses to RedHat, but there is most certainly a cost of ownership associated with "building and customizing" their own Linux distribution.

The cost of hiring sufficient engineering and support personnel to manage this certainly drives up the cost of ownership for the "free" linux solution.

Because even I can roll my own Linux distro http://linuxfromscratch.org/ Step by freaking step. What manner of army of engineers do you need for that?

So which am I the fool or the liar, or both? You know much, so you can let us know. But otherwise, give us the details of why it takes that army.

Here ya go Snowflake... http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Linux From Scratch (LFS) is a project that provides you with step-by-step instructions for building your own custom Linux system, entirely from source code.

Here's the way I'm going. I'm happy with slackware nowdays tho. Pretty easy tp update it. It actually *is* pretty close to a classical UNIX, but of course BSD actually *is* UNIX.... bear in mind that originally UNIX didn't *have any* package management. It required you to use your brain and put in some effort. In many cases it still does, compared to the other systems on the market.

Yes.

If you could articulate WHY you demand that it not be part of a DE, it would be helpful.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia is your friend. "LXTerminal is the standard terminal emulator of LXDE. The terminal is a desktop-independent VTE-based terminal emulator for LXDE without any unnecessary dependency. "

LXTerminal 0.2.0 dependencies: Vte-0.28.2. PERIOD.

Appears to me that there is no rational reason to discount it. You don't have to load LXDE to get LXTerminal.

I know how you feel, I had a similar experience at first. I think Linux is actually more difficult for advanced windows users than for novices - advanced users are used to feeling like they know all the answers and being able to just get things done, so it's more daunting coming to an unfamiliar environment.

If you want deep knowledge and you're technical and patient, you might want to check out Linux From Scratch, which is a book that goes through building your own Linux system from the ground up. It's probably more involved than what you're looking for at the moment - it's probably something better suited to someone with at least a few years Linux experience under their belt, but it does give you a really good understanding of a lot of stuff.

There are a lot of guides out there. Search engines are your friend. Search for [distro] [problem], e.g "ubuntu install software". also searching or "howto" is helpful, e.g "ubuntu apache howto".

One site I have used is the linux documentation project. They have a bunch of guides. In particular, Linux Filesystem Hierarchy Sounds like one which would be good for you. I have referred back to their advanced bash scripting guide many, many, many times over the years.

On the command line, man is your friend: type "man [command]" to get the documentation for most commands, e.g "man ls". There is also "man -k [searchterm]" if you don't know what command you want. It's dry reading but usually pretty detailed.

But I think perhaps what you really want is IRC. Pick a distro and jump on to the freenode IRC server and look for a relevant and active channel, e.g #ubuntu. Ask questions. You'll find someone (or a group of someones) who will be happy to answer questions. An advantage of IRC is speed - you get a response more quickly than on a forum.

In terms of installing software, it's not like windows - It's much, much better. most distros have a pretty user-friendly GUI for it these days. It'll offer you tens of thousands of apps with search and screenshots and ratings and all kinds of bells and whistles. And if you use the command-line you'll soon get the hang of apt or yum (depending on which distro you choose).

Go with a distro aimed at newbies. They are all very configurable and it's unlikely you'll need to switch for a technical reason, the community is the biggest difference IMHO - the distros aimed at newbies have better documentation and more helpful communities. I don't want to tell you what to choose (it's all about it being your choice after all), but IMHO you should choose ubuntu or one of its variants/derivatives.

It's not easy at first, but as your knowledge builds up it gets easier and easier. You will hit a point where you feel comfortable and then you will start learning a lot of things really quickly and then suddenly you'll feel really comfortable and you'll never want to go back. Don't give in to the initial frustration - stick with it, it's worth it.

And it is so odd, because the last time I checked, I had a couple hundred choices: http://distrowatch.com/ or even the possibility of making my own linux distro, one so capable of "purity", that everything in it meant I put it there: http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Isn't it odd that a post like that gives links to the many possibilities of Linux, one that offers a cure for the apparent seething, white hot hatred that some folks have for systemd, gets "overrated" and "flamebait" mods?

So tell me, is Distrowatch flame bait? Is Linuxfromscratch flame bait?

If giving links to a solution is flame bait, it becomes very, very difficult to claim that some folks do not have a deep seated need to hate something, in this case systemd. There is a fix, but even mentioning the fix is bad among some folks? Cure yourselves "doctors".

You are only proving the authors point, that there is something deeply wrong with people who are at each others throats when there is absolutely no need to be.

Thanks for proving the article,

This is what happens when the users have NO WAY to influence direction, you get shit like Pulse and Systemd rammed down your throats.

Then he does an even better job of proving it. By doing the same old thing he claims to accuse others of doing.

And it is so odd, because the last time I checked, I had a couple hundred choices: http://distrowatch.com/ or even the possibility of making my own linux distro, one so capable of "purity", that everything in it meant I put it there: http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Which is all to say, with a couple hundred choices out there, it is pretty obvious that this whole hate thing is based on a need to hate, not actual reality.

When you are done ranting here, there are some guys down at the corner gas bitching about Ford Versus Chevy. You'll fit right in.

Well GNOME and Debian are two of the biggest OSS projects along with Red Hat being one of the biggest open source companies and they have all decided to integrate systemd. Not to mention that many developers have chosen to use PulseAudio despite it not being in any way mandatory.

The resistance to change is strong in some folk.

The problem is that his solutions to existing problems aren't perfect so sideline commenters get all caught up in the imperfections of the solution while the actual project maintainers and stakeholders integrate it and get stuff done.

I'm a Linux zealot first but Oh my gawd! a piece of Linux software that isn't perfect - something out of the gate that isn't 100 percent perfect! Honey, the neighbor's kids are all shitting on my lawn!

The virtue of open source is that you can fork projects if you don't like them and if a large swath of actual developers took issue with projects like systemd then it wouldn't be integrated into their projects

bam...

and/or the major projects that do integrate it would be forked.

Bam!

If you don't like it then don't use it or do something about it but for fuck sake stop whining about it, the fact that there has been so much vitriol yet so little progress on maintaining pre-systemd codebases proves that most of that vocal uproar comes from people incapable and/or unwilling to contribute anyway.

BAM!

And down they go.

http://distrowatch.com/ doesn't show FreeBSD as the top download, hell it's at number 20. Top distros? Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, OpenSuSe, and Fedora.

Perhaps the haters are all out making their own pure versions of Linux? It's not that hard.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

So there we go! I'll not hold my breath though. The systemd bashers are an almost perfect example of the drones that believe their opinion is all they need to contribute.

nah... don't call yourself a 'hacker' unless you use http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

So, you're against choice.

The pro-systemd people want to force their crap on everybody, and call anyone a hater who doesn't like having things forced on them.

The anti-systemd people want the freedom of choice - you know, one of the major things that set Linux apart from Windows,Ridiculous, and completely backward/

Most very respectfully you want to demand that systemd go away. You are the one who is anti-choice.

You speak of freedom of choice, then you demand no choice but what you determine to be acceptable.

As I noted before, you or I can make our own linux distro . And the unmatched power of Linux is that if we do not want systemd on it, we goddamned well do not have to have systemd on it. Actual choice, systemd, or not systemd - and not your screaming, bawling, and crying that you cannot control what others do. Then making the ridiculous claim that your restrictions are somehow a choice.

And now, I present to you the ultimate choice in Linux operating systems, in all it's glory:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

And if you don't want to do your own build:

http://distrowatch.com/

I suggest clicking "Random" distribution first, just to get an idea of what all is out there. Many without systemd, many BSD variants. Take a look, It's a wonderland .

That is what freedom of choice is, not your demand that everything conform to your idea of what is right.

That's why this argument is so silly, it's like demanding that Ubuntu not be allowed to put out their weird GUI. I don't like it, so I don't use it.

Ho no this is not about buying a new vehicle.

It is about buying a vehicle that suits you however.

Here is the source for everyone who hates systemd:

http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

Linux from Scratch. Do you know at minimum how to get around in Bash? How to download programs that you want on your build through the intertubez? Heck, you might be able to cut and paste the various commands.

You download what you want, build your Linux with not one thing other than you want.

No systemd, no pulseaudio.

And this is the real crux of the matter. I could build my own distro if I wanted. And so could you. I don't do it - although I might some time just for shitz and giggles - because I don't have an issue with what I can get right now. But it sounds like just the thing for you and some other folk.

Why would you not? Is it more fun to bitch and moan about it?

I try installing Linux From Scratch every now and then. Works best in a Linux host virtual machine. I was never successful using the live CD on bare metal hard drive. If you ever read "Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution" by Glyn Moody, this was how Linus Torvalds built the early Linux while using Minix as the host operating system.

This is exactly the problem though. The prime distributions have been going to systemd and outright dumping support for all other init systems wherein if say I want the package system of Debian but I want to go with a more classical init system, I have to download a system with systemd and then work to retrofit my init of choice to replace it. I was about to say that even the current book of LinuxFromScratch has gone in favor of setting up systemd based on when I looked at 7.6 a few weeks ago, but that's no longer true. Apparently it's been changed back to sysvinit since then and the systemd version has been given a separate link on the page.

I have no problem with distros offering systemd as an option as much as they offer Gnome, KDE, LXDE, etc as options. But don't force me on an upgrade path where I have to use systemd as an init if I've already got my servers set up for using init scripts and don't really have the time to go through configuring a new init system on a *hobby* network. This is what I'm looking at for several home servers when CentOs 6.5 LTS loses support. My options are going to be migrate to CentOs 7 and deal with systemd configuration headaches, or migrate to another distro and learn that ecosystem of doing things. Either way, I'm going to have to learn something new, not in itself a bad thing, which is why I've been looking at LFS more closely and actually weighing that route against going to a *BSD variant. If I'm going to be forced into changing some aspect of the way I'm doing things, I'm going to chose the path that looks close enough to familiar with the path I've been on or will give me plenty of practice with its new to me method (changing from yum to apt-get is an easily adaptable change, going from yum to portage, not quite so easy; going from yum to self-compiling... LFS will definitely give me plenty of practice by the time it's installed...what does *BSD use and how does it compare?), and looks like there won't be much of any further operational changes in the distant future (distant being relative to computer terms: 5-10 years).

If religions were operating systems, Buddhism would be LFS. LFS

Ubuntu already divides the server from the Desktop. It is split in two, and he didn't need to open his mouth, just do a Google search and he would have found it.

Of course, the distro doesn't have the exact minimal install he needs, but no distro will because everyone has a different set of needed packages. Unless he builds it himself. If only there were a way to do that......I'm pretty sure Gentoo "emerge nginx" will do exactly what he's asking, too.

Also, who on earth is Paul Venezia? He calls himself someone "who builds and maintain large-scale Linux infrastructures." Can that possibly be true?

http://www.linuxfromscratch.or... Everything you need, nothing you want.

We have Unix before Linux so why not stick to Unix.
All the "we had this before" arguments are pointless in an environment that moves on, "the old way" is always deemed the best is a nonsense argument. Should we still be riding horses to work, using steam trains, etc etc

There is nothing to stop you going your own way if this kind of progress is an anathema to you, here's a site that might be interesting to you. http://www.linuxfromscratch.or...

"System V Release 5 was developed in 1997 by the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) as a merger of SCO OpenServer (an SVR3-derivative) and UnixWare, with a focus on large-scale servers" - thats from wikipedia as well. so the chances are there must be some code in SysV developed in the bowels of SCO which is GPL'd, and thats what i meant about getting rid of SCO code. And yes, i have worked on SCO servers albeit in the late 90's and early 2000s, we supported over 700 in remote sites, we tried pushing Linux as a replacement but the corporations were having none of it.

I accept your claim that you have no experience with Linux

Actually I have quite a bit of experience with Linux. Here's a tiny bit of proof... just search for ID 6746.

But unlike you, I seem to have experience with other operating systems as well.

along with your acknowledment that you are too stupid to figure out that more people will buy a $300.00 laptop than will buy a $1000.00 laptop, regardless of OS.

You mean, like these?

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ will make you happy

Gentoo is fine if you're a sadist, but the rest of us will stick with Slackware.

Slackware is nice and all but what about LFS?

Have you tried LFS?

GNU make is great!

War in La Jolla, seventh year, seventy-third entry (http://slashdot.org/journal.pl?op=display&uid=1026842)

The new national standard stupidity test. How many new random tourist single day stay dogs, daily, would "they" need to bring to you for you to figure out what their power trip is and what they do for their money? Ten dogs, daily? Background noise. Twenty dogs daily? There's an excuse here, for the money, that more people with dogs are moving in. New dogs, single day stay? Don't pay much attention. Good excuse (laugh at this and then walk down that ramp). Thirty dogs? More people moving in. New dogs? Don't care. For weeks now? Too busy. Forty dogs? Would you be able to figure it out at forty new dogs daily? Don't pay much attention. Move the dogs that they surprise you at significant frames in time; at cash register transactions, when you cross through a doorway, in particular when you leave the lavatory or just as you begin eating. Would that help you pay more attention? How stupid are you? Fifty dogs, up to months? Would you be able to figure out what they do for their money, what their power trip is, that their game is to play the passive aggressive pranks on unsuspecting workers (and each other)? Sixty dogs? What's your IQ?

If they were all wearing K-mart t-shirts, would you be able to figure it out? What if they all wore arm bands? Do you need a new witness for every dog or do you need seven different signatures in red ink for every dog every day? When are you required by law to be smarter than the telephone? When are you required by law to be more intelligent than the fork you dropped while eating? When are you absolutely required by law to be more intelligent than the video game controller? When, watching football, are you required by law to be smarter than the remote control? When do you figure out what their power trip is and what they do for their money?

Once you figure out what they do for their money, what are they doing with all those children? Those are all the super hammer chldren, the disposable heroes. They eat the ham that the contracted "they" are not required. Travel agencies worldwide are offering vacation pacakages including a complimentary one-to-three day stay in La Jolla, if you qualify with dog and super hammer child. Then they bring the hammer children, with dog, to see the homeless man.

Jesus. You're supposed to go for a long walk. Moses and Elijah told you so. It's a food chain. The difference between wood alcohol and grain alcohol. Farm sh*t reduces to methanol. They know exactly how super that super hammer child must be to go blind. Jesus, when you go for your forty day walk, they ramp the kid up to be a superstar futures investor, and then you walk back into town and the Sadduccees claim some space-time continuum thing makes you responsible for the blindness. Not just one. They probably have a few dozen super farm sh*t eating disposable heroes lined up for somebody like Jesus. There are entire scary movie subdivisions completely stocked, like SimCity, to hide rings of super hammer children. Then, when appropriate, the hammer children are brought into contact with an eligible target. When the super hammer child goes blind then all hell breaks loose on the target's life and the background gossip is that they deserve it. They control the horizontal and the vertical, they control all contact you have and everything you see and what else goes on around you all day long, but when that super hammer farm sh*t eating proxy child ("WE LET YOU WATCH AND NOW YOU MUST EAT IT! IT'S YOUR PART! WE LET YOU WATCH!" barking of machine gun fire, does nothing to me now) goes blind, then YOU'RE TO BLAME, YOU'RE AT FAULT, IT WAS YOU, YOU DESERVE WHATEVER WOE YOU'RE GETTING, WE HOPE IT HAPPENS TO YOU, WAAH WAAH WAAH.

Sure. Show me another farm shit eating pedophilia doll with a dog. We're up t

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

go ahead and jump in

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

2.6? 3.7? year and a half? What is holding everybody else back? :-)

There's a lot of reasons to switch distros. Everyone usually finds one that fits their way of thinking after two or three. People also find that the different distros work better at different tasks - you don't (generally) use Ubuntu for servers, for instance.

As far as what I run on "my" computer, it hasn't changed much: Slackware -> Debian unstable. I knew Slackware inside and out (back in the 3.x days) and now I know Debian very well (you have to, if you run unstable). I've hit a comfort zone, and I'm unlikely to change.

I switched from Slackware to Debian because Slackware was very, very far behind on switching from the libc5 C library to glibc (the second major change in Linux, the first being the switch to ELF executable format). A lot of software was being written that didn't work with the old libc5, and Pat (the maintainer of Slackware) was being stubborn on the point. He had his reasons, but I wanted new software, so I switched.

I tried Corel Linux back when it came out. That lasted about two days. It didn't live up to its promises, and when I found myself replacing the Corel repositories with Debian repositories, I knew it was in vain (BTW, doing apt-get update && apt-get upgrade from Corel to Debian is... interesting. It worked, after a lot of fixing, but I finally wiped and reinstalled Debian). It's just as well - there was only the one version of Corel Linux.

I've had to use Red Hat (not Enterprise, but old school Red Hat Linux) on a few occasions for work-related reasons. This was back in the RPM dependency hell days, and it turned me off of any distro that doesn't maintain a decently large package repository. I used Fedora Core 4 and found it to be just as bad. Same goes for Mandrake (before they became Mandriva - I had friends who ran that because it was "user friendly" - I did not find it so. It might be better now, of course.

I've used Gentoo for shits and giggles on a server I run. I was just curious about it. I've since replaced it with OpenBSD because a) I didn't have the time to learn to admin it properly and b) compiling every package in the system on an Intel Atom chip is painful. (I already knew how to admin OpenBSD.) I liked Gentoo and if I ever replaced Debian as my main distro, it would be to go to Gentoo. I just don't have the time to learn a new system anymore.

I've done LFS. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the underpinnings of Linux. It reminded me a lot of my Slackware days, back when you had to compile everything.

Ubuntu works, and I've run it on a few machines, but doesn't fit into my way of doing things. I like to customize my system a lot, and I like to log in as root when I'm doing admin stuff. You can do that with Ubuntu, but it's just easier with Debian.

Of course, there's the BSDs and Solaris as well, and these days I mostly do server stuff on OpenBSD (or FreeBSD if it's a fileserver). The BSDs make excellent servers and don't feel as "hacked together" as Linux does. I wouldn't use one as my main system, but if I had a technical job again I wouldn't mind a FreeBSD desktop.

So the rite of passage isn't to find the most obscure distro, but to find the distro that suits both you and your use case best. Experimentation never hurts, and you can learn a lot from running different distros.

Wait, I know...

Among them: glue scripts, Cisco interaction / automatization tools, backup tools, alerting tools, IP-to-Serial OOB stuff, even a couple of web applications (LAMPython and CherryPy

And then I thought of my old lost code vowel to accomplish aLFS.

Looking for the ttervo's old church of xut pic (tux holding a smoking high calibre street sweeper and walking away from the monitor) I walked across hakin9. One of the cleaner front pages I have seen in a while. The ad: "become a pentester" as a legal hacker. You know, before they began demanding buggy software on store shelves, beta tester was going to be a very happy career.

While a lot of people thinks that a 64bit CPU deserves a 64bit OS for the sake of speed, it seems it's not so clear that it'd be a good move.
First, you need to have at least a single thread that requires more than 4GB RAM at once.
Say after me: "a single thread that requires more than 4GB RAM at once".
Probably an heavy loaded DB (to load a lot of indices in RAM) or a computer graphics imagery application or some other application with very very large data set to be worked on at once. Not impossible, but not so widespread. Maybe very large Java application can swallow all that RAM.
For a general understanding of CPU horsepower, give a look to a very simple observation (I wouldn't call it a real TEST) you can find in Linux from Scratch documentation

a 64-bit build is only 4% faster and is 9% larger than the 32-bit build

This also means that you have (more or less) 9% more chances that your code won't fit into the CPU cache, making that 4% extra speed less effective. And that you'll need (more or less) 9% more RAM to execute 64bit programs.
So, in my extremely humble opinion, unless you are running an heavy duty, heavy loaded server, you won't benefit that much from a 64bit OS on a 64bit6 CPU.

If they say "linux" without specifying a distro, obviously, they must be talking about LFS. That's going to be tricky no matter what hardware you try to put it on, and it's certainly not going to "just work" right out of the box...

There is no way Steam, which is a "App store" for games, will have any effect for anyone other than gamers. There is no way every distro in existence now or in the future will require Steam in order to install an application and be a productive system. Hell, they can't even agree on a standard packaging system as it is now, and you expect, just because a gaming "App store" decides to port itself and a bunch of game over, Linux will suddenly become a proprietary, closed source, non-free system, unable to be productive without the Steam store?

There may be a distro or two locked into Steam and it's marketing method, but Linux in general will survive and be free. One way or another, there will be at least one (Debian?) free and open distribution out there. If not, again, you can always roll your own.

It doesn't matter how Valve changes their TOS, Linux will always be free and open source, and there will always be productive applications for it.

Of course, our sun COULD go supernova tomorrow, and all this worry about Steam corrupting OSS beyond repair will be moot. That, by the way, is far more likely than Steam having the effect on the freedom of Linux and OSS software mentioned above.

Just how do App stores pose any danger to Linux? Linux is GPL, and will always be GPL. There is no way anyone will be forced to use an App store ONLY enabled distro in the near or distant future.

If you or RMS even think Steam on Linux will magically turn Linux into a proprietary locked down operating system, or even has the capability to do so, you have no idea at all how the system works. There is nothing short of outlawing Linux that will do that, and even then it'll be an underground OS, so that really won't work.

Don't like what Steam is doing to Linux? Don't install it, and guess what? You're running the same damn thing I am, just without Steam installed. Or run a distro that doesn't support Steam, or build your own from scratch. THAT is the power of Linux. CHOICE.

Hell, even I don't have any clue where to begin on which one to recommend.

Linux From Scratch, next!

Why stop there?

LFS can typically be built from any Linux host system - a Knoppix CD or a liveCD for any other distro would probably work.

Or you could just check the host requirements.

Well there is always Linux from Scratch.

http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Have fun!

I feel like i made linux from scratch every time i have a working installation that is 100% working with harddisks, dvd, colors, high res, 3d, sounds, and working keyboard + mouse!

I'm afraid that's what you get when you install Linux from here. Try getting it from here or here instead!

Actually, if I were to do something like this, I'd use LFS instead.

Maybe if you took the time to read TFA you wouldn't talk rubbish

Or better yet, cross-compile NetBSD for i386.

That has been done (FreeBSD installed on a 386-SX) but it was a while ago, and it was a *big* job.

I once got a 386 for free and installed Redhat on it back in 1998. It's not that big of a deal.

You installed it on a 386-SX?? Really? I've got early copies of RedHat if the floppy disk haven't died, and plenty of 386-DX boards - I'm betting, like the RedHat manual says, it won't install on an SX chipset.

Actually, if I were to do something like this, I'd use LFS instead. Or better yet, cross-compile NetBSD for i386.

1) cat or dd the laptop's harddrive to a faster computer's disk as a disk image
2) Mount the disk image
3) Compile and install the OS onto the disk image
4) cat or dd the disk image back to the laptop hard drive
5) Profit!

I once got a 386 for free and installed Redhat on it back in 1998. It's not that big of a deal.