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Linux on Older Hardware
sparrow_hawk writes: "One of Linux's strengths has always been the wide variety of older/obsolete hardware it supports. However, most modern distributions seem to assume that the user has a brand-new machine with processor and RAM to spare. Linux Journal reports on the RULE project (Run Up2Date Linux Everywhere). They are trying to come up with a low-resource-requirement, easy-to-use Linux installation for use on older hardware, intended as an option when you install Red Hat Linux. The FAQ has more information."
The why is RULE distributed on DVD?
(-;
Interesting that this was posted tonight -- today I was poking around my parents' basement (aka, "Free Storage for Me," or in German, "Krappenhaus"), and I discovered a wealth of old equipment I'd...um...creatively obtained from my high school and various jobs over the years:
The only problem is deciding whether or not I want to turn it into a Linux box (SOHO firewall, anyone?), or take advantage of all those classic games by installing FreeDOS.
Damn you Slashdot. Who would have thought that you could have too many choices for using a 486?
They that would sacrifice their
There are a couple ways to get a modern Linux on your old 386 right now, although getting Red Hat to de-bloat would be very cool. I still use 6.2 on some old laptops because it was a nice, stable release, sorta modern apps, and works fine with 16 megs of RAM. But also look at Vector Linux, which has a 386 & 486 optimized distro with a 2.4 kernel & lots of small recent apps. You can get it on CD too. And also Small Linux, which will run in console mode in as little as 2 megs of RAM, and will do X-Windows with just 4 megs of RAM. The Small Linux kernel is only 2.0, though. But it's very cool to give someone an old 386 laptop with a Web browser, basically restored to some minimal usefulness.
By the way, if you check out Small Linux, you may notice that the home page talks about a .75 release. But you'll find a .81 release available for download. It's definitely improving (my first try with this distro & it just wouldn't even work, but now it actually runs if you're able to follow the instructions carefully).
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AMD 1800+ mobo/CPU combo sells for under $300
But the PPro 200 hanging on my wall at home was FREE. As in beer. Which means i could run something like RULE on it to serve the approximately 2 hits per month to my personal web page and use the $300 to buy more beer. The point is, people shouldn't have to spend $300 just to have a decent system while perfectly usable hardware is ending up in the dump.
The only people who need Linux to run on old hardware are the Luddites who refuse to part with their old equipment, and they are nothing but an albatross around the neck of the Linux community
It's not like writing less bloated code is a bad thing. Crapping out code that does stuff is not hard. If Linux was just a bunch of bloatware kludged together to barely work, it would require a lot less effort. (Hell, it'd probably be done.) The hard part is designing a good system, and that benefits everybody.
Older machines generally run cooler than the newest Athlons and P4's. If what you're looking for is a reliable machine to be a firewall, dns, router, print server, etc., then you want reliability. Ever seen a HSF die on a 1GHz+ Athlon? The machine will crash. Hopefully, the CPU will still work once you replace the fan. I've had the HSF on my old PPro 166 go out twice. The machine just keeps running. Oh yeah, it's actually a 150 overclocked to 166. And it's perfect as a firewall router machine. Before I tripped over the power cord, I had an uptime of 158 days. Before that, it was something like 109 days.
Anyway, the new systems are almost entirely the same from the software's point of view. They still use 32 bit PCI and 16 bit ISA buses. Yes, even if you don't have ISA slots, there's still an ISA bus there on the "south bridge" for the serial ports, parallel ports, keyboard port, mouse port, etc.
Access to memory is the same for a P4 as it is for an original Pentium. The instruction set of the processor abstracts access to memory. As long as you can compile a kernel that doesn't use P4-specific or Athlon-specific instructions, then you can run it on an old Pentium (or even an old 386, which is what Linus designed it for, IIRC). And as long as you can compile a kernel that disables drivers for devices you don't have, then you'll be able to use it on an old machine.
Cryptnotic
My other first post is car post.
...Linux kinda NEEDS to run on old kit, and run reasonably well. By "well", I mean at least as snappy as whatever OS is actually designed to run on the thing, to an extent. I wouldn't expext X to be as snappy on a Quadra 650 as MacOS 7.6.1 (hell, it's not all that snappy on a G3).... but I'd like the draw rate to be measured in FPS instead of blinks of the eye.
I bring the Quadra up for good reason- I'm a Mac user. (stop laughing, and read.) I don't have a system that runs MacOS X well enough for my needs (this include my G4/733 at work, to be blunt... it's a slug compared to "classic" MOS). My home systems and my work systems are all task dedicated.... but I have that Quadra to mess around on.
Old hardware can be had for VERY cheap. And it's a BITCH to find an old OS for old hardware (want to run A/UX as your firewall? Good luck.....). Linux and BSD offer an excellent opportunity to run a production-grade OS on outdated consumer-grade hardware. A lot of both respective systems will run acceptably on just about everything... until you hit the GUI- at which point it seems to be an ordeal similar to that of amatuer web designers... you know, the cats that don't even have Netscape installed and don't even bother to test in the browser revision below whatever they're using now. It seems to me that a lot of OSS programmers whose work is getting into Gnome, KDE, and other graphics-intensive areas of a Linux-based OS are designing ON modern hardware FOR modern hardware. They don't seem to realize that not everyone - particularly those who could benefit the MOST from their work- has access to or owns modern hardware. And of those that DO... not all of them are willing to SPARE that modern hardware for the weeks/months of the learning experience.
Old hardware is cheap... I'd LOVE to see OSS programmers approach their hobby/love/job the way GOOD Web designers do- test early, test often, test on hardware, connections, and media that's at least a revision older than what you're using to code. It's effort- something not a lot of people are into- but you want to see your widget run as smoothly on mom's Pentium 100 as it does on your G4, right?
I'm not trying to start an OS-flamewar, but seriously. NetBSD supports almost every piece of hardware out there. In addition, its a Very lean and mean distribution.
:)
:)
Its also quite easy to recompile the entire baby (if you've got enough diskspace, of course). It would take time on a 386 though.
Point is, there _is_ a free unix available that installs in almost no space. And, that unix is _great_.
(Note: FreeBSD might be more optimized for i386, but that distro has gotten a bit too bloated imho. at least compared to NetBSD
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
But - I succeeded!
This poor box, with all of 16 megs RAM (and a kick-ass swap file!) is now running:
- A CircleMUD-based MUD (telnet klomdark.servebeer.com port 4000)
- A Citadel BBS (telnet to klomdark.servebeer.com)
- Apache (With some cool stuff listed here...)
- A Mailserver (both SMTP and POP3) (Email me...)
It CAN be done, but this distribution would have sure come in handy! But, an old copy of RedHat 7.0/i386 worked just fine, once I actually located an ISA network card that it knew how to deal with :) )
Insane installation - took nearly 16 hours to install it. Nearly 4 hours to compile Apache. Probably 8 hours to compile Citadel, and another 8 to compile CircleMUD. (I would have thought Apache would take the longest...)
Also in the "works on small/old computers" topic, both SuSE and Mandrake seem to have some activity in this area. It's nice to see them listening to customers a little bit. I buy their boxed products, and really, really want them to speed up & shrink down. Check out my Usenet post about installing SuSE 7.3 on a 32 meg Pentium 1 (summary: it hurts, but it's possible). And for Mandrake, check out this Slashdot article about Mandrake's upcoming super-super-minimal install.
This kind of stuff is near & dear to my heart -- I have spent hours upon hours trying to squeeze installs onto old 486 laptops, mostly. Partly I wanted to learn Linux, but mostly I was just indignant that Windows would install & run okay, so I got very interested in making Linux compete. If you get any Linux working on old boxes, please please please document it somewhere that Google will find you. I'm constantly searching Usenet & the Web for other people's installation experiences.
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I have just accepted a donation for my school district of 32 Compaq Proliant p166 systems. Now should I fork over the cash to microsoft for 32 98SE licences or should I install my copy of Redhat 7.2? I really like this article. I have rescued over a hundred machines for my schools and children that would otherwise never have a computer. I'm using Linux because it is free as in cheap. There is a guy like me in every school district. Some are Macnazi's, some are MCSWannabE, and some, like me, depend on linux supporting old hardware. I have introduced well over 1000 kids in the past 3 years to Linux. They go home to their Macs and winboxes but a few come back and ask me to burn a copy of Redhat for them. For their old boxes. "And by the way do you have any cd drives" they ask. "My computer doesn't have one."
I think I'm doing the right thing.. but then.. I'm a Luddite and nothing but an albatross around the neck of the Linux community
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
NetBSD runs on EVERYTHING, with more packages, more complete, LONG LONG LONG before ANYTHING else (backhacked that is). Linux is not a step or two behind NetBSD, it's MILES behind when it comes to porting.
For that matter, IMHO, Linux (although it's almost the only UNIX I use now days) _STILL_ doesn't get "porting" the way the BSD community does. Make an app compile given a set of general expected things you expect to be there, and it COMPILES, and it RUNS.
Way too many Linux programmers think "if it compiles on Mandrake and on Debian, it's portable!" &*#*(@!&(*@!
ONLY NetBSD will get X running on the box you drag out of the closet and brush the dust of to read what it is.... Atari? MacSE? That wasn't my furnace, that was a PDP11? NetBSD is your friend.
OK, maybe X is a stretch, but, still, don't diss the dog that sniffed the trail!
Oh, how I wish Moore's Law would finally come to an end soon, or at least come to the point that it becomes impractical for the mass market to bear the cost of supporting its continued geometric growth. The factuality of Moore's Law is one of the biggest problems with the computer market: it's truth means that the market is not stable. This allows software makers to become sloppy with their design decisions because they wind up thinking, "Oh, it's slow now, but in 18 months the top of the line systems will double in power and then have enough computing power to run this kind of bloated crap I'm putting out without being as slow as a tired snail." It's as much true of the mainstream Linux distro makers as much as it is true of Microsoft and other proprietary software vendors.
Just for my workaday Linux distro, Red Hat 7.1. I for the life of me cannot understand why in heaven's name I need to install Kerberos to install the RPM package for CVS or LPRng. I don't have a Kerberized network and have no intention of setting such a creature up anytime in the near future, and likely it's true for most everyone. Or why I'm forced to install Japanese TTF fonts (xtt-fonts) just to get GhostScript up and running, or why printconf has to have a Kanji converter (nkf). I don't read Japanese, and I imagine the vast majority of the users of Red Hat's standard edition will never have any need to view, much less print, a Japanese-language document. The list of odd dependencies can go on and on ad nauseam, and there are many other signs of bloat. It's this kind of bloat that makes it impossible to run an up to date Linux distro on older hardware.
The other problem comes from hardware manufacturers, which is why unless Moore's Law comes to an end someday, this trend is going to keep going. And never mind us folks whose incomes cannot support a major hardware upgrade every 18 months. When a new technology appears, they stop making the old technology almost instantly. Can you still buy EDO SIMM's? Can you still buy a non-AGP video card? Well, unless you go to a surplus shop, probably not. Because of Moore's Law and its effect on the market, obsolete hardware has a way of becoming impractical or even impossible to maintain at some point, which is why everyone, even us in the third world who don't have a lot of disposable income and can't constantly support hardware upgrades, is eventually forced to upgrade.
While this project's aims are commendable, I wouldn't hold out too much hope for a universal adoption of its philosophy, not until Moore's Law comes to an end and the computer hardware market stabilizes as a result. Until then, I hope they remain true to the vision and not succumb to the temptations that have created the bloated monstrosities common nowadays.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Hello, I have just finished to read all your comments with great interest as the RULE project leader, I would like to answer some questions, and clarify some points.
1) Our project is *not* only for very old hardware. Many people (including myself) can afford much more than 16 MB of RAM, but are tired to see them all busy in drawing nice window borders. Nothing against those who like it, we just want another choice. And PLEASE look at what the LJ article says about internet appliances, PDAs and cell phones. Remember that most of what we want to do is about packaging, and smart configuration, something EVERY DISTRO CAN BENEFIT FROM (see faq #5).
2) somebody said "don'be so cheap, you can have PCs for 300 USD". I thank all those who immediately reminded to such *lucky* guys that 300 USD or lower is average YEARLY income in most of this planet.
3) The "use your 486 just as a thin terminal" doesn't work too well when the 486 is the most powerful PC around (or the only one...)
4) We know that specialized distro already exist. Debian and Slackware are good too, but we think, as explained in FAQ that is time that low needs must become characteristic of every MAINSTREAM distro. Even more, that a lightweight install must be fully functional as a desktop from the first boot. Today, whatever distro you install in the minimum configuration, you have still to tweak a lot of things, because it has always been thought for server use by already expert sysadmins.
5) To those who said "Moore law will vanify all your effort before you are finished" I can only say maybe, but if we don't start to do something, many Linux distros of 2003 will probably pretend 512 MB of RAM just to install, and 1024 to startx...
6) We ruin economy? If more people (not only those who can buy a 2 GHz 3-d game console and use it just as a typewriter) start getting a decent education, can start a modern business, and so on, is that bad for the economy? Especially considering that after getting a job with the practice they make on RULE computers, they *will* have the money to buy something to play quake? I have nothing against that, but "buy game level HW from the very start or nothing" is wrong.
(on the same theme, why one should be getting an IT education on old software? this would be another form of discrimination, and the reason why we don't consider tiny or similar projects a complete solution
7) We are not going to work on non x86 HW, there is too much work to do as it is already. You are welcome to do it, especially, let me repeat it, because MUCH OF OUR WORK will be reusable on other distros/platforms.
8) Our position w.r.t. Red Hat: they obviously know of the project, and some of their engineers are on the RULE list. We will make all RH compatible, in the sense that if your HW allows it you can start with the RULE setup, and add/upgrade with any standard RPM you want. If Red Hat will include it in its official CDs, very good, I do hope it, otherwise it will be available anyway, so what's the problem?
I hope to see you all soon on our mailing list. We need a lot of testers, and of smart configuration suggestion, from ALL linux users.
Ciao,
Marco Fioretti