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Historic Linux File Archive Created

Posted by simoniker on from the welcome-to-the-world-of-yesterday dept.

jemagid writes "Ibiblio (nee metalab, nee sunsite) has rummaged through all the old CDs and old FTP archives we could find, to put together a beautiful picture of the early days of the Linux community: Historic Linux. The files include snapshots of the early Linux archives including sunsite.unc.edu and tsx-11.mit.edu, and early distributions such as MCC (Manchester Computing Center) and SLS (Softlanding Linux Systems), which were some of the first attempts to make Linux easy to install and use. The early RedHat releases are also included, as is early Suse, Debian, Slackware, and Blade. The early distributions ran on machines as small as 386's with 2-4 MB of RAM, so these could be fun ways to resurrect ancient hardware."

13 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Uhh... by grub · · Score: 5, Insightful


    The early distributions ran on machines as small as 386's with 2-4 MB of RAM, so these could be fun ways to resurrect ancient hardware.

    I certainly hope no one intends on putting these old versions on the net lest they become a w4r3z server or DDoS drone..

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Uhh... by Pieroxy · · Score: 5, Funny

      I actually managed - back in the good old days - to boot up a Linux on a 486 33MHz with 1MB RAM. The only problem is that I couldn't log in: it took the system more than 1 minute to prompt me for my password when I entered my nickname. As the timeout is set to 1 minute, I got prompted for my nickname again, without getting a chance of typing my password!!!

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  2. Modern distros on old hardware by i.r.id10t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Modern distros on old hardware still work - I've got a 486sx33 laptop with 4mb ram (Toshiba Satellite 1910) that had Slack 7.0 and 7.1 on it. I upped the ram to 12mb and it now is a fairly useful machine with Slack 8.1 on it.

    --
    Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    1. Re:Modern distros on old hardware by admbws · · Score: 5, Informative
      Slackware recently dropped support for i386, as the ChangeLog explains (scroll down and look for the new GCC 3.3 packages):
      Added the following test packages that we're not ready to merge in yet:
      testing/packages/gcc-3.3/gcc-3.3-i486-1.tgz: This is GCC 3.3, compiled for
      a minimum CPU target of i486. Why i486 and not i386? Because the shared
      C++ libraries in gcc-3.2.x will require 486 opcodes even when a 386 target
      is used (so we already weren't compatible with the i386 for Slackware 9.0
      and nobody noticed :-). gcc-3.3 fixes this issue and allows you to build a
      386 compiler, but the fix is done in a way that produces binaries that are
      not compatible with gcc-3.2.x compiled binaries and which suffer a
      performance hit. To retain compatibility with Slackware 9.0, we'll have to
      use i486 (or better) as the compiler target for gcc-3.3. Therefore, it is
      time to say goodbye to i386 support in Slackware. I've surveyed 386 usage
      online, and the most common thing I see people say when someone asks about
      running Linux on a 386 is to "run Slackware", but then they also usually go
      on to say "be sure to get an OLD version, like 4.0, before glibc, because
      it'll be more efficient." Now, if that's the general advice, then I see no
      reason to continue 386 support in the latest Slackware (and indeed it's no
      longer easily possible). People with 386 machines aren't going to have the
      hard drive space for Slackware 9.1 in any case.

  3. a fun way to resurrect ancient hardware... by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... would be to put something new on it, something the designers of the time would never have concieved. Like the hacking community around the atari 2600 or colecovision, or getting the C64 internet ready with its own ip stack. Make it do something it wasn't meant to do.

    Running a 10 year old linux on a 10 year old computer is just as interesting as running DOS or Win3.0 on it, though only half as useful. (Mod me down if you must, but linux was still very much a toy for comp sci students back then)

    --
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  4. Hardware by jargoone · · Score: 5, Funny

    The early distributions ran on machines as small as 386's with 2-4 MB of RAM"

    Damn! Time to upgrade again!

  5. Re:Beautiful Picture? by kaszeta · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I remember trying to install from those same SLS diskette images downloaded from Rusty 'n Edie's at 9600 baud. It was not a pretty picture.

    Indeed, I still have a whole shoebox of floppies that (if they can still be read) consist of the current Slackware version in 1993/94. I managed to get many a free meal in exchange for letting folks borrow the box to do a Linux install. Those were the days.

    Then again, I've got better museum pieces than that, including a 486 still running Debian 0.93R5 (that even made 666 days of uptime in '96 or '97 before a power outage took it out), although it doesn't really do much other than sit there. Doing anything with it stopped being the point a long time ago...

    But really, it's rather interesting that someone is still keeping these old dists around, it's interesting to see what happened when.

  6. Re:Uhh... Really? by JiffyPop · · Score: 5, Funny

    I don't imagine there are many warez servers with 2MB RAM and 100MB free HD space... Besides that, I would think that as many versions as the underlying libraries have gone through that current cracking tools wouldn't know what to do with something so outdated.

    Maybe you should create an archive of old Linux cracking tools just to even the playing field?

  7. The REAL value of this... by DickBreath · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The real value of this is to have an archive of the entire development history and community. Out there in the open for all to see. Right there in front of God and everyone. It will help protect Linux from future SCO's.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  8. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  9. Re:This is great to see. by RobotWisdom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hope to add direct links from my Linux timeline sometime soon.

  10. Debian Archive.. by molo · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those that don't know, there is Debian Archive of older versions. I think ibiblio has this beat with 0.91 Beta though (Jan 94).

    -molo

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  11. Huh? by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The early distributions ran on machines as small as 386's with 2-4 MB of RAM, so these could be fun ways to resurrect ancient hardware."

    Hmm, I'm running 2.6 Rc1 right now on a 386 with 4mb ram...

    why do I need an old distro to run linux on really slow or old hardware??

    that has always been the magic of linux... pure scalability. and it takes 10 minutes to roll your own single floppy distro.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.