Antique Distros?

An anonymous reader asks: "I've got an old 486 that isn't doing anything (it has RedHat 6.2 on it and even that barely works), and I have been considering installing an even older distribution to make it more usable. I'm looking for something I can download still, has a good bit of programs, has X, and is still a relatively reasonable download for a 56K modem. I would like to download the distro with my new computer, then burn a CD or do something like that to install it on my old computer. The computer is a 486 at 33Mhz with 16MB RAM and a 1.5GB HDD. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated."

Comments

Early Slackware

[HotNeedleOfInquiry]

Would be your best bet. I've run it on just such a system. Can you say "recompile the kernel" I knew you could.

Re:Early Slackware

[daaan]

I agree with the slackware 8.1 comment. I have a 486dx-66 with 16MB that sits in my closet and acts as a broadband router for the test of the network. It's an old DEC machine that runs beautifully, with i think 2 350MB harddisks in it.

The nice thing about slackware, not doing a lot of fancy hardware detection is that i was able to remove those disks, put them in a faster machine, install everything, recompile a kernel specifically for the 486, slap the disks back into the old cae and away I want. took less than an hour to get everything set up...

Start the flame wars

[noz]

I thought that was what Debian 386 (i.e. not x86) was for. :)

Um, slackware, I guess, but that's not the problem

[Cecil]

What's wrong with an old version of slackware? or heck, even a new version of slackware, I bet.

I installed slackware on a 486sx laptop with 4MB of RAM and only a floppy drive, (although they've since dispensed with the disksets) and it ran just fine. X was slow, but that's par for the course, deal with it.

Really, I don't see why the distribution matters as much as the software you're putting on it. I mean, if you install KDE, it's going to be dog-slow. That's KDE. Try installing blackbox or fvwm or even windowmaker: all fairly lightweight-but-usable window managers. Every distro has them (almost).

It's not a matter of picking an old enough distro, it's a matter of picking your software wisely. No, a "default install" will not cut it. You're going to have to be selective. If you're low on disk space, try nano, vi, jed or jove instead of emacs. as far as X-based edtiors go, you might as well forget about it. On a 486, even kedit is pretty heavyweight.

Try old Debian.

[molo]

Older Debian Distributions:

http://archive.debian.org/dists/

I just did this recently

[benjamindees]

with only 8 megs of RAM. I have finally gotten it to a usable point with FVWM and a custom, pared-down kernel.

I used Debian Slink, but I have access to a broadband internet connection. The X Configuration was a major pain. You should look into a mini distribution that comes with TinyX or something based on UCLibC if you really want the most bang for your download time. Remember, VesaFB is your friend.

I'm also looking for a distro specifically for old 486's, but I am yet to find one. I have run across this commercial OS, though, which is pretty cool.

NetBSD

[beholder77]

I have a collection of older machines (see my web page) some of which are quite bit slower than most 486's. I've found that when it comes to memory utilization, and hard drive space requirements, NetBSD is a good contender. You can reduce the memory footprint by recompiling the kernel (just like Linux), and get away with a usable system in 20 megs (without man pages or system source files).

I'm not trying to disuade you from installing Linux by this comment (I love Debian), just telling you about my OS of choice for older machines.

LTSP

[JohnFluxx]

I have some old machines, and I run kde3 on them, with open office and mozilla. How? I actuallly run everything off a main server, and just export the display. My old machines don't have any hard disks, just a floppy disk drive, mobo, video card and ethernet card.
See ltsp.org for more details.