VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware

SilentBob4 writes "Mad Penguin has the first review of the latest VectorLinux release. Vector is based on Slackware Linux, but is built on a newer 2.6.7 kernel (Slackware 10 was still built on a 2.4 kernel with the option of using 2.6) and is optimized to run well on older hardware. Even old Pentium PCs run well on this distro. Complete review with screenshots."

Comments

VL

[k31bang]

I've been using VectorLinux(3.2) on my 760 series thinkpad for about a 8 months or so. Installing it was made easier by first installing Smart Boot Manager, which allows booting from a cd when the BIOS is too old to know how. Then, just to be a wiseass, I setup ICEwm to look exactly like windows XP(wall paper and all). Nothing like running xp on a 166. ;-)

Re:VL

[Anonymous Coward]

"Nothing like running xp on a 166. ;-)"

what about running linux in a 166

Re:VL

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm getting tired of these "performance" comparisons for linux reviews, unless you havnt noticed, we're all using the same software, we all have access to the same compiler, we all have the same kernel.

so your distribution includes some awesome patchset? newsflash, thanks to the gpl we can all patch our kernels/apps/whatever and use it.

so your distribution uses prelink? Newsflash, prelink is free software.

So your software is Hyper-super optimised for i686? well guess what, i'll grab the srpm or whatever your distro uses, recompile it and so is mine.

Re:VL

[chadm1967]

Yes, but not everyone knows how to do what you recommend.

Re:VL

[timeOday]

RTA. VectorLinux isn't about patchsets or compile options:

Whenever possible (which is most of the time) in cases where there are two or three good applications to perform a specific chore, they would choose to include the most lightweight one out of the bunch for inclusion into the final release. This is what makes VectorLinux what it is, and always has been.

Can you take any linux distro and hand-pick all the lightweight software for an old box yourself? Sure, with enough elbow grease. Or you can use VectorLinux, because they already did it for you.

Re:VL

[antiMStroll]

It's always interesting to see an AC comment modded up when it bears no correlation at all to the parent post. BTW in case you haven't noticed, distros vary on which supported features and optimizations are enabled when compiling binaries and some distribute custom kernel patches. Saying you can replicate any of them given enough time is at best a non sequitur.

Re:VL

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, because where there are two or three good applications that perform a specific chore, most distros always choose the worst, most bloated one of the bunch....wait..no.

Did you really think there was some guy at mandrake/rh/novell HQ thinking, "heh, those lusers are all getting the shit web browser! HEHEHEH!, I'm keeping the good stuff for myself!!!!1".

Re:VL

[timeOday]

Good point, because where there are two or three good applications that perform a specific chore, most distros always choose the worst, most bloated one of the bunch....wait..no.

Wait... yes. They often pick the most bloated software, because it is often the best looking and has the most features. Bloated software is often a fine choice for newer, more powerful computers. That's why there's an opening for VectorLinux.

Re:VL

[Anonymous Coward]

distros vary on which supported features and optimizations are enabled when compiling binaries and some distribute custom kernel patches

Gripping stuff.

Re:VL

[Pxtl]

Anybody know how it compares to DeLi? http://delilinux.berlios.de/

I've been considering loading DeLi on my old 166.

Re:VL

[kantai]

Of course, but don't equate your definition of bloated to bad. Gnome is bloated, I suppose, but it works very well and is much more pleasant and easy to use than many lighter alternatives (fluxbox and the what-have-yous.)

Re:VL

[Ziviyr]

Can you take any linux distro and hand-pick all the lightweight software for an old box yourself? Sure, with enough elbow grease. Or you can use VectorLinux, because they already did it for you.

Or you could just refer to a list of the programs they use...

Not in the FAQ

[Stevyn]

Does VectorLinux still follow the right-hand-rule?

Re:Not in the FAQ

[ettlz]

Depends on the parity bits. PseudovectorLinux is one that's invariant when you flip these.

Re:Not in the FAQ

[GreatBunzinni]

I don't know if VectorLinux follows the right-hand-rule but a whole bunch of slashdotters still live their lives by it, specially when one-hand typing.

SOHO

[gid13]

I've used Vector Linux 4.0 (SOHO version) for a while, and I have to say a couple of things.

1. Judging it by the same apps (firefox, for instance), it was STUNNINGLY fast compared to XP Pro and all other Linux distros I've tried (Fedora, Mandrake, Arch, even Gentoo).

2. It sorely lacks a good dependency-handling package manager. Two exist that I'm aware of (Swaret and Slapt-get), and unfortunately they both just aren't that good. If this was remedied, well... just... wow.

Re:SOHO

[0racle]

No dependencies was actually the whole reason I switched to Slackware in the first place, but more importantly does Vector have PAM by default or did they follow Slacks lead on this too and not include PAM?

Re:SOHO

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree completely.

When I started with linux, I used mandrake, just because of its rep as a newbie distro. I found unusable slow. I was disappointed. People had told me online that "linux was faster than windows". I felt like I had been lied to. (I was upgrading from win98, they were comparing to XP)

I switched to vector for speed alone. I was impressed. Even KDE was snappy! But, I wasn't able to install a single package.

I've switched to debian based distros exclusively, just so I can get stuff installed. However, I still miss vectors speed. I wish someone would make a distro compatible with the debian archive that had vector caliber speed, if that's possible.

Re:SOHO

[TheKidWho]

You could always try out gentoo, it happens to be very easy to install apps with portage, and it is very speedy too.

Re:SOHO

[chadm1967]

What's wrong with Swaret? I've never had a problem with it.

Re:SOHO

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...Last I checked, many packages in portage are broken and the maintenance is very weak. The major packages will usually work, but the release cycles of the whole system are so short that they just can't maintain the ports fast enough. A gnucash dependency issue (prevented compilation) a while ago was not resolved for at least weeks and possibly months. What a pain.

The performance is also mediocre and is not a positive element of Gentoo even if it was at one point. I thought the idea that Gentoo is fast was debunked long ago. Compared to Windows XP, KDE on Gentoo is downright slow (on a 2GHz Athlon with 512MB). There doesn't seem to be a simple reason and I've used Linux systems off and on for about 10 years now. It's so slow that it's worth the $100 for an OEM version of XP just to save time.

Re:SOHO

[Anonymous Coward]

Arch is also very nice -- it's complied for i686 and has great package management, so you get speed and flexibility without having to wait for things to compile. The main disadvatage over Debian (or Gentoo) is that the number of packages is relatively small.

Re:SOHO

[Ziviyr]

(and pre-compiled packages generally exist)

I worry that Gentoo needs more harddrive than the average distro though...

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[photonagon]

Pentium III, a dinosaur?

What does that make a Pentium, or 486, or even a 386?

Screenshots

[Sarojin]

Is there really a point in a review for a Linux distribution including screenshots? Hurray, we can see their GDM skin and default background pictures!

Re:Screenshots

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Is there really a point in a review for a Linux distribution including screenshots?

Yes. You, just like the AC above, undeestimate the power of balanced configuration choices.

See the screenshots for Kurumin, for instance.

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[BluhDeBluh]

Presumably some sort of ancient bacteria. With this in mind, they'll probably find primitive 386s on Mars in 20 years...

No package system...

[dark-br]

no dependency control, no thanks.

Re:No package system...

[Jameth]

"no dependency control, no thanks."

I see this a lot. I'm a Slackware user, so I don't have dependency control in a packaging system. And, I've never had a problem. Occasionally, when I build something from source, it complains something is missing, I download it, build it as well, then continue. This takes almost no time (sometimes the build takes time, but that is unavoidable if there are not binaries, regardless of the system).

So, my question is, is this dependency control thing actually a problem, or is it just theoretically a problem?

Re:No package system...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's theoretically a problem that touches on an actual problem.

I built LFS-4.0 when it was pretty new. It's really quite easy, and I believe the reason for that is the detailed dependency lists and documentation of configuration options. Every source package should strive to make it's documentation equal to that in the LFS book. Once you deviate from that book, you find that some packages (which are just source tarballs) don't even list their dependencies correctly, much less what versions of those dependencies will work. Others don't provide good documentation, so you might end up recompiling two or three times to get everything fixed like it needs to be. The greatest problem is lack of documentation.

The first reply to your post is the other half of the problem. Updating packages and removing old, unneeded files is very hard when you don't have any information of what files were installed. I've personally recompiled packages just to see what files it creates so that I can remove them out of my system in order to update. This is stupid on my part, because I didn't bother to keep track of what files each package installs. Throwing away information is the stupidest thing that can be done.

I still eschew package managers though. They don't help at all if only some of the programs on your computer are controlled by them, and they tend to abstract away nasty configuration details when it would have been better for good documentation to have been supplied in the first place.

Still, I have a virtually unupgradeable system. I need to update everything, and I've been exploring FreeBSD5 recently (but only because DragonFly_Stable didn't have PF when I needed it a few weeks ago (does it have it now?)). FreeBSD (and the other BSDs as well) are nice because the core system can be upgraded with a few simple commands. The core of the operating system is designed to be easy to upgrade, and I wish there was a comparable Linux distribution in terms of methods of upgrade. I don't have enough spare computers to test lots of distributions, so my searching is slow.

In the meantime, I've taken to installing new packages/programs into their own directory. When I had to upgrade autoconf, I recompiled the old autoconf (2.53) to find what files I needed to delete. The newly compiled version went into /usr/pkg/autoconf/autoconf-2.53. The new version of autoconf went into /usr/pkg/autoconf/autoconf-2.54. I added the bin, man, and info paths to their path variables, and I haven't had a lick of trouble with it. Other programs done the same way have caused trouble, mainly because of pkg_config. I've also had to add -I and -L flags to compile new packages, which isn't too much trouble. Of course, programs like xfig don't fit into my model at all.

All in all, a package manager like apt-get solves a slightly different problem than actually exists, but it works well enough that people don't worry about it.

Re:No package system...

[Erwos]

So, basically, you condemn RPM hell on one hand, yet think it's perfectly fine when it's with TGZs.

Sorry, that makes no sense.

-Erwos

Um....

[StickMang]

Apparently he was running his mysql server on dinosaur hardware!

Vector is the shizzle

[CestusGW]

I've had the chance to use vector before, and I have to say it's the cleanest distro I've ever come across. No bloat, no extra features, no bizillion things starting at system boot.

Linux and Environmentalism

[QuantumFTL]

I believe that linux distributions like this that cater to older hardware encourage responsible environmental behavior among computer users. Honestly, for many purposes a 6 year old machine is just fine. I find it really convenient to have access to an always on, personally reconfigurable server that I can use for everything from a database to a small dynamic website. Most things that we do with computers nowadays don't really push our CPUs.

I also think it's fantastic that they are using new the new kernel - cutting edge software is a great way to reinvigorate older hardware. I really hope that this leads to more computer reuse by geeks and maybe eventually nongeeks.

A lesson people seem to have forgotten since the great depression survivors have moved on is "waste not want not". I for one think this world would be a better place with a little more of that attitude.

Besides, it's fun to think that our "favorite" OS could be helping keep the world a safe, clean place for our children.

Cheers,
Justin

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Zork the Almighty]

I believe that linux distributions like this that cater to older hardware encourage responsible environmental behavior among computer users.

Wait, you mean like this ??

I find it really convenient to have access to an always on, personally reconfigurable server that I can use for everything from a database to a small dynamic website.

Why yes. Nothing quite helps the environment like running all those old computers 24 hours a day!

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Anonymous Coward]

With nuclear power, what would be the problem of running a PC 24hrs a day? As opposed to smelting metal, refining silicon, etching wafers, making plastic and shipping it overseas?
Lefty, you're out of your depth.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Zork the Almighty]

Or how about as opposed to nothing. You could recycle that old computer (really recycle, not ship to a landfill in China) and buy shared webspace from a company. They can host thousands of shitty little websites with the same amount of electricity, and the net cost to you is about the same.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Lord Kano]

I really hope that this leads to more computer reuse by geeks and maybe eventually nongeeks.

I think we have been doing just fine with old hardware. It's the mundanes who have no use for a 3 year old computer.

LK

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Anonymous Coward]

Older machines are not always more environmentally friendly than newer ones. I agree that needlessly discarding old machines is a bad thing. However, keep in mind that newer CPUs build on smaller manufacturing processes are, when taken at scale, are more energy efficient. If we could somehow convince manufacturers that we don't really need all that speed, then we could get cheaper, more energy efficient chips. (Some companies do this I suppose, like Transmeta and Via)

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming I want to host a shitty website? Fuck you, tree hugger.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[MooseGuy529]

This is very true. Sitting across the room from me, I have a 333 MHz Celeron (Pentium III version). It isn't really suited to using as a desktop system, so I have Apache and Music Player Daemon on it. With Apache I can serve up a small website or develop it from any computer on my network, and MPD lets me play music and control it from anywhere in the house. It's also just nice to be able to SSH home from school.

Old computers rock.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[gp310ad]

One has to be careful in weighing economic balances.

Does it make sense to use your old Sequent Symmetry box in the middle of the summer when it needs tons of airconditioning capacity?

What about that old Compaq Deskpro 486 with the 5 1/4 drive? It eats a lot of juice and puts out a lot of heat.

6 year old systems are pretty bad too. Combine one with a 17 or 19 inch monitor and you're pumping out 150-300 WATTS! This is at least doubled if you're running a cooling system for your 'environment'.

IMO, the latest and greatest systems with ACPI, and ondemand processor speed control coupled with the new, efficient, high brightness LVDS LCD displays are much more friendly to the environment. The next level will be improving the compoents used in these systems so that airconditioning isn't necessary. I haven't used AC in years and have found it easy to adapt. I just think before I move and I don't move as fast ;-).

Waste depends on how you measure it...

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The thing is that the older computers exist already, so it is an effective "sunk" environmental cost in manufacture. Creating demand to build a new circuit when the old one still works is often unwise.

The newer computers can do more computes per unit power / energy but if it is wasted, then more energy is being wasted.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The energy cost of running an A/C system isn't that extreme. For an A/C unit to move 100W of heat from one side of the system to the other, it only neads 10W of energy to do so. Energy is still being conserved throught the thermodynamic cycle, 100W removed from the room + 10W to remove it means that 110W has been put outside.

The energy cost of manufactuing an LCD panel is high too, don't leave that out of your equation. Using an existing used display is a sunk environmental cost, and I think the monetary cost dofference of operating an old CRT is a lot less than the cost of replacing it with an LCD panel.

Re:Linux and Environmentalism

[toddestan]

All other things being equal, if you need to have a computer running 24/7, you'll use a lot less power with a typical old PII system than a typical modern P4 system. Not only does the processor consume more less power in an older system, but so do the HDDs and the video (unless you're old PII has a late Voodoo card in it!)

Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[lonesometrainer]

I have not tested Vector yet, but my experiences with KDE 3.3 on Gentoo and SuSE on my Homebox (a PIII-866 with 384MB) haven't been too well.

It looks nice, offers plenty of features. But EVEN if you turn off all eyecandy, care for running kde services (plug-ins, snap-ins whatever) 3.3 still feels sluggish.

I just don't want to test that on a P1-166 with 128MB RAM, should feel like running OSX on PearPC on a Centris.

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[uggis]

I compiled KDE 3.3 on my 466MHz Celeron laptop with 192MB ram running gentoo, a week ago. The compile took two days (with xorg), but it did not feel sluggish compared to Windows XP on the same machine. Sure, it took a while to open Konqueror, but nothing dramatic. I have to confess that I unemerged it and emerged openbox though..

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[ValiantSoul]

I just don't want to test that on a P1-166 with 128MB RAM, should feel like running OSX on PearPC on a Centris.

Do the good thing and switch to FreeBSD then

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[Anonymous Coward]

Try it out. It doesn't cost anything and if KDE doesn't work out you can always do icewm or fluxbox with other minimalist programs.

It realy does make a difference...

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't cost anything ...

Doesn't the article say it costs $24.97?

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[Anonymous Coward]

i run XP or Knoppix on a PIII 500mhz with 192mb of ram and it works fine (KDE3.4) even using firefox + watching a divX movie its all still snappy and useable

Re:Runs well on Pentium PC (== P1) with KDE 3.3?

[RefriedBean]

Just yesterday I installed Slackware 10 on a P3 466Mhz with 128MB ram, for my dad, after windows 98SE and XP both refused to install after hours of trying. I updated to KDE 3.3.1 with the packages on the KDE FTP. And -WOW-. It's SO speedy, I couldn't beleive it. I run KDE 3.3 on Gentoo on a Duron 1Ghz with 512MB ram, and it sorta feels 'sticky'.. I was really impressed. So, if you have old hardware, you can still get a great desktop system for email, documents, etc (my dad uses his box for trading on FOREX,, java applets) by using something lightweight like Slack or Vector. On my main machine though, I'll stick with Gentoo.. just because the package manager is so much more flexible than slacks.

Page 2 is down

[Zork the Almighty]

Looks like someone needs a rocket fueled webserver...

Sounds great to me.

[Hinhule]

I think this may be what gets me into Linux, I have an old 266MHz computer that isn't doing anything.

Re:Sounds great to me.

[jessONslash]

I run collegeLinux (another slackware based distro) on PII 233MHz. Runs reasonably well. Firefox/thunderbird are apparently not as optimized as on win98.

Re:Sounds great to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have 128 MB or more of ram, then you might try one of the live-cd distros such as damn small linux. I suggest version 0.6.3.

Re:Sounds great to me.

[leadsling]

I had picked up several PII 266 Mhz, about 5-6 of them with only 32-64 MB of EDO RAM. After trying Mandrake, Slackware, and Gentoo with them, I came across Vector 4.3. It works very well on these systems. I set them up with ICEWM as the default window manager and they are very snappy. Even installed Firefox and gnumeric using swaret and had no problems with dependencies. Great choice for old hardware.

From the VL site referenced...

[gp310ad]

"Slackware has been traditionally known to be about as user friendly as a coiled rattlesnake"

I always thought Debian was the coiled rattlesnake.

[localuser@localhost localuser]$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.10-rc1 #1 Fri Oct 29 12:30:23 EDT 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Text of first page

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I only have been able to grab the first page ("Overview") before the slashdotting.

Maybe other have "The Desktop" and "Final Ruling"

--
VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware

Last update: 10-28-2004
Submitted by MadAdmin

As time pushes onward, the computer word grows exponentially in size, accomplishments, features, advances, and of course... system requirements. The latter is more a burden than a benefit if you ask most people who have the pleasure of working with computers day in and day out, but the Linux community has a decided advantage over most: They have the ability to control their destiny and the hardware it will run on.

Sure, some of you will immediately say ?X or Y distro is bloated to the point that is comparable with Microsoft Windows at this point? and you aren't wrong for saying so. Linux has grown to a size where it can easily put Windows to shame in terms of sheer girth. Linux in the year 2004 has more bells and whistles than Windows could ever dream of, and that's not a bad thing... unless you are the proud owner of hardware that Thomas Edison would be able to easily identify in a line up.

So what do you do with that old Pentium II 266MHz laptop or PC that's been stashed in your closet for the past three years? Is it possible to actually use it again as a worthwhile companion for performing everyday tasks that your new 3GHz computer handles so easily? Well, the full answer could be very complicated if we were to cover ever last little detail, but the short answer is simple: YES.

VectorLinux can (and always has been able to) take an old dinosaur of a computer and render it just as useful as the day that it was new. Seriously. Built on Slackware Linux, one of the most stable and best performing distributions available today, VectorLinux has been optimized to the point that it outperforms every other distro I've tested on older equipment... without fail. So, if you've got an older computer that you were getting ready to throw out the door, dust it off, purchase a copy of VectorLinux, and bring it back to life.

Features:

Linux kernel 2.6.7
Glibc-2.3.2
Gcc 3.2.3
XFree 4.3
KDE 3.2.3, XFCE 4, Fluxbox, and ICEwm
Mozilla 1.7
VASM

[2 images of a fairly default KDE 3.3 desktop]
L to R: VectorLinux loading KDE 3.3, the Konqueror web browser

Installation

If you've ever installed VectorLinux before, you know the installer. It hasn't really changed much over the past couple of years that we've been monitoring it. It's simple, GUI-less, to the point, and lacks advanced options. Is this a bad thing? In some cases with certain distros, yes, but in the case of VectorLinux it's not even a concern. The reason being is that this distro is so stripped down as it is, fine tuning packages and settings after the installation takes just as much time as it would during the install, and there really isn't much to it anyway.

For those of you who are reading this and have never installed VectorLinux, don't be intimidated by the lack of a pretty graphical installer. The Vector installation is completely simple, even without the GUI, and any user with a basic understanding of Linux will have no problem installing it. The only 'gotcha' I noticed (and I've complained about this in past reviews... nothing has changed) is that after partitioning the drive(s) you come to a prompt that is a bit confusing to the newcomer... it's a multiple choice screen which has the following options:

RETURN Return to the partition program. I want to try again
REBOOT Reboot the system to add the new partitions
RESTART Don't know how I got here but I want out

To most people (including myself), restart means reboot... but obviously there is already an option for rebooting, so what exactly does it do? Restart the installer? Well, sort of. What it means in VectorLand is continue on with the next step of the installation. I stumbled on it

How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[Anonymous Coward]

newer processors (P4 and above) with modern goodies (HT, SMP, etc...) without any fat/bloat/code-for-compatibility-sake just to keep the dinosaurs happy!

(I know about the one man show Arch, but I'd prefer a team.)

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Say, are you the same person who was whining about efficiency in computing?. Your trolls are not of the highest quality... Not even self-consistent!

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[Hatta]

If you sunk $150 into the old hardware and upgraded it to new, you'd have a quicker machine and wouldn't have to sacrifice functionality and features just to get that old dinosaur PIII to crawl from its own ashes again.

I switch between my XP1800 and PIII 800 all the time. I don't notice that I'm sacrificing any features or functionality. Sure I can encode oggs faster on the athlon, but for day to day usage a PIII is plenty. You don't really need that much power for browsing the web, reading PDFs, writing PDFs, etc etc.

Text of second page

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the database now and then has some breathing space :-P

So here's page 2 :: "The Desktop"

--
VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware

Last update: 10-28-2004
Submitted by MadAdmin

The VectorLinux Experience

One of the first things I noticed when loading this distro was that they are still using their own login manager and quite frankly I don't care for it. The main reasons being it isn't the easiest to work with/update, and it's definitely not very attractive to gaze upon when I start my machine. On the Deluxe version, KDE is included but not installed, so my first order of business was to install it and get it running. Of all the other window managers available with this distribution, I have to say I really like XFCE4. The others I really could care less for... this isn't to knock their power and speed on this system because that's why they're installed to begin with. They're just not my cup of tea, but there is a definite purpose to their being. While I'm on the topic of login managers, I have a suggestion for the developers of VectorLinux: Why not use either GDM or KDM? They are both very capable as well as attractive. GDM might be more fitting for the VectorLinux way of thinking since it can be made to be really minimalistic. That's just this author's two cents of course.

Back to KDE...
[2 images]
L to R: The icewm and xfce4 desktop enviroments

Like I said, installing KDE was as simple as mounting the VL4.3 installation CDROM, navigating to the packages/kde directory, issuing an upgradpkg ?install-new *.tgz command, and sitting back while the packages were installed. Once they were complete, I ran ldconfig and tried to launch the KDE login manager, KDM. It loaded just fine, but if I tried to login, it would kick me right back out to the KDM rather than to the desktop where I should have been taken. This is something that has been going on since I can remember with Vector. I guess I can't complain too much since their login manager and window manager choices were in keeping with their overall design philosophy: keeping it slim, fast, and capable of screaming along at blistering speeds on older hardware.
NOTE: KDE 3.3 is also available for VectorLinux and can be downloaded from their Ibiblio FTP location. The packages were built for Vector's SOHO 4.0 edition but work well (from my experience) on the 4.3 release as well. On that same topic, I'd like to point out that with as many bugs that were introduced with the 3.3.0 version of KDE, I can only hope that this version is replaced by 3.3.1 to remedy the issue.

The overall feel of the desktop in VectorLinux can be summed up in one word: responsive. It should also be noted that this behavior is pretty much independent of the window manager you choose to utilize. KDE and Gnome might prove to be small exceptions to the rule since they are getting so overwhelmingly large, but they still run well on Vector... more so than it's capable parent: Slackware Linux.

What I ended up doing to get KDE to run whenever I typed startx at a command line was editing $HOME/.xinitrc to read as follows:
#!/bin/sh
# Launch KDE from startx
#
userresources=$HOME/.Xresources
usermo dmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap
sysresources=/usr/X11R6/lib/X 11/xinit/.Xresources
sysmodmap=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11 /xinit/.Xmodmap

# merge in defaults and keymaps
[ -f $sysresources ] && xrdb -merge $sysresources
[ -f $sysmodmap ] && xmodmap $sysmodmap
[ -f $userresources ] && xrdb -merge $userresources
[ -f $usermodmap ] && xmodmap $usermodmap

# launching KDE
exec startkde

I copied the whole file here verbatim to illustrate better the changes that would need to be made, but all you really need to be concerned with in most cases is the final line to launch the window manager. The rest of the file can stay the

Don't worry about old hardware

[bigberk]

Slackware is definitely good with old hardware. In our student computer lab, we have a number of 100 MHz-ish ancient desktops running Slackware 10 with X.org.

Also, Slackware is a good base for tweaking your own distro, because it is so pleasant to configure :)

Re:Don't worry about old hardware

[Lord Kano]

Also, Slackware is a good base for tweaking your own distro, because it is so pleasant to configure :)

With Slackware, tweaking isn't just a nice option, it's a must.

I have installed Slackware 7.1 and 9.(something), both of which required heavy configuring afterwards before it would work the way I wanted it to.

LK

Actually a *big* problem

[dark-br]

Occasionally, when I build something from source, it complains something is missing, I download it, build it as well, then continue. This takes almost no time (sometimes the build takes time, but that is unavoidable if there are not binaries, regardless of the system).

And then you end up with a system fully loaded with files you don't know the source, what are they needed for, if they are still needed, if they have any kind of security hole etc.

That the real problem, it's not getting stuff to work, is getting rid of it when it's not needed anymore.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

I've been a Slackware user since the mid-to-late 90's and I would not trade it for anything else. I tried Debian once, maybe twice. Didn't like it. dselect and tasksel were horrible... Then someone on Undernet #Linux said "Don't use dselect, then. :)" and a lightbulb switched on... I hadn't realized that the base system is all you need to get going. You can completely customize the thing after doing that. I was amazed, it was the distribution I had been dreaming about. It's similar enough to Slackware to satisfy my geek heart but it makes cleanups so much simpler... Actually, they make them possible at all. It's damn impossible to clean up anything in Slackware unless you use it's package system, for which almost no 3rd party packages are available. When I switched to Debian recently, I decided on a nazi regime for software installation. I said to myself "NEVER install anything from source" and hoped I would be able to survive on .deb's and apt alone... and it worked. My Slackware server just got cracked. I caught the cracker red-handed and threw him out. It's too much work to keep packages updated on a Slackware box where things are compiled from source and you hardly know what you have installed. I'm going to install Debian on it as soon as I can. On that point: The server is several thousand miles away and I don't want to bother the dude at the colocation facility with the re-install. Can I somehow install Debian on that box via SSH?

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you end up with a system fully loaded with files you don't know the source, what are they needed for, if they are still needed, if they have any kind of security hole etc.

That the real problem, it's not getting stuff to work, is getting rid of it when it's not needed anymore.

No, this is not a problem (and this has nothing to with dependencies). This problem is handled by almost never running ./configure; make; make install as root (except for trivial things that you really don't kind if they go in /usr/local or /opt). Instead one should take the 5 minutes to write a Makefile/shell script to to a ./configure; make; make DESTDIR=/tmp/foo install and make a proper Slackware package and then do installpkg. That handles the inventory control part of the equation. This is a completely unrelated issue to a dependency system. The latter can be applied on top or can be ignored completely. Also, if the package is something that is applicable, it's nice to take a few minutes and post it out on linuxpackages.net.

I use debian for systems like workgroup servers where apt-get is a definite benefit. For special dedicated systems with tightly controlled and limited software sets, an automated dependency system just gets in the way, for little benefit. Slackware works out as a good base system on which to add customizations. Using some rsync and ssh magic, automatic update distribution and configuration to clones of a tightly configured dedicated system (like machine control or data acquisition, for example) becomes simple and quite pleasant.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[13Echo]

Why's it too much work to simply download updated packages from Slackware-Current and run "upgradepkg"?

Pat keeps the thing up to date at all times, and all critical exploits are practically always fixed in current. He updates practically every few days.

http://www.slackware.com/changelog/current.php?c pu =i386

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Then here is my advice, *if* you simply want to update a package which hasn't been updated for slackware yet, grab the slackware source package, modify the build & install scripts to match the new version. Build and install your brand spanking new Slackware package.

As far as things you can't get as slackware packages, then, you can examine some of the build install and package scripts for other slackware packages to see how they work. Then find whichever script method seems to fit the package you want to make, and modify the script to build your new package.

Slackware has a number of programs to aid in the creation of packages as well, including i believe one which you pipe your manual build through and it captures all of the files created etc. and logs them for later use in package creation. At least last time i was aware there was this kind of a program out there however i don't know their status.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are refering to checkinstall (http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/)
To p stuff, build things from source, then remove or reinstall or whatever with the slack pack system.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[mailman-zero]

I believe the program you are thinking of (or at least the only one I know of) is called checkinstall. I've used Debian before and I thought it was great. Debian's got a lot going for it, but what about when all you want to do is upgrade something like SDL to the newest or CVS version on a system? Debian's package manager will wipe out EVERYTHING (if you want to build from source) that relied on SDL! Instead of

./configure
make
sudo make install

you just do a

./configure
make
sudo checkinstall

and you're good to go. Makes a Slackware package (says it can also make Debian packages, but I can't vouch for how well that works) that can easily be managed with pkgtool, etc. Checkinstall is available as a slackware package from the extra directory on Slackware mirrors.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Anonymous Coward]

How could you 'not know what is installed' when you build from source? Didn't you personally put it on there? I'd be more worried about those packages you're probably installing as root.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

That's all nice... *if* you're using Slackware packages all the way. The fundamental problem doesn't really lie in Slackware's package management. It even has an 'apt' now, named 'slackpkg'. The problem for me lies in the poor availability of packages for Slackware compared to other distributions like RedHat and Debian.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

Okay. Fine. But that sounds much more time consuming than just using apt, where the vast majority of prepacked software packages are are kept up to date, in Debian's repositories or someone else's.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

Some of you may like to compile from source. I think it's tedious, especially when some pieces of software I've attempted to compile want me to spend hours compiling 10 other libraries first. It takes longer to download the source. It might not compile, whereas Debian packages work reliably. Compiling programs is about the most boring task I know of. You just sit there and wait. And I personally don't reap advantages from compiling from source. Binaries are perfectly dandy.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

Unless you keep tedious notes of all significant and insignificant libraries you hurriedly installed to get a source compiled, then you don't know exactly what's installed on your system. Wether you think this is amateurish or foolish is besides the point. The way in which Linux shares a small set of directories for files of various purposes (bin, lib, man, etc) makes it impossible to see exactly what file belongs to what application. Package managers are a blessing in this context. They keep those 'tedious notes' for you, and I think it's only reasonable that a modern computer OS does so. If by 'packages installed as root' you mean daemons running as root: I avoid that as best as I can.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[mailman-zero]

The reason I like compiling from source is that I don't have to rely on someone else packaging something for me. The other issue I've run into is when a program needs to be compiled with certain options to make it do what I want (mplayer and SDL are both good examples) and packaging systems just don't tend to offer enough flexibility in that regard.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

Although I see lots of little warning messages when I run my precompiled MPlayer binary, it still seems to work just as my customized MPlayer compiles used to do, down to having compiled-in support for fonts, win32 codecs, skins, ..., etc. When you need to enable things with compile switches, that is IMO not better than having something hard-coded. Letting macros (#define, #ifdef, ...) save your day doesn't make a truely modular design. It's just a bad monolithic emulation.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The way in which Linux shares a small set of directories for files of various purposes (bin, lib, man, etc) makes it impossible to see exactly what file belongs to what application.

There's a perfectly good and sensible solution to all this, and it's called GNU Stow - everything you compile goes into it's own separate directory in (for example) /usr/local/stow - thus mplayer would be installed to /usr/local/stow/mplayer-1.0pre5 or whatever. The mplayer binaries will now be in /usr/local/stow/mplayer-1.0pre5/bin and so on.

Then you run stow on that directory and it symlinks everything back to /usr/local/ ... So now in /usr/local/bin there's a symlink called mplayer to /usr/local/stow/mplayer-1.0pre5/bin/mplayer. If you want to remove those symlinks, you run stow with the -D flag on the same directory.

Why is this a good thing? Well, if you want to uninstall a piece of software, you simply remove the relevant directory in /usr/local/stow. If you want to upgrade a piece of software, you can keep the old version around and easily switch du -h --max-depth=1between the two using the -D flag to remove the symlinks to the previous version. If you want to simply how much space each piece of software is using, just do a "du -h --max-depth=1" on /usr/local/stow. And if you want to see what old software packages are lying around, to a "dir -t" on that directory.

In short, you've got all the virtues of installing software by source, combined with all the advantages of a package-management system, without any of the disadvantages of a package-management system such as databases that can become corrupted. Stow's been around for ages and it's so useful for power-users who want to compile from source. It always amazes me that more people don't use it, or even know about it ...

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[SuburbaniteFury]

Debian spoils people. I have been using Debian for several years now and whenever I find myself using a different distribution, I feel somewhat lost. For me, to search for a Slackware package that I want from the ftp site, then to to make sure that I have all of the dependencies, and finally to then download and "installpkg" or "upgradepkg" is way too time-consuming for me. With Debian, one can simply "apt-get install " be done.

This does not even take into account the ease with which Debian users can upgrade their systems. It is entirely possible to run a Debian unstable system for years without reinstalling; I am living proof of this. This kind of simple and reliable upgrade process that Debian users have come to expect is possible with neither Vector nor Slackware -- nor, for that matter, with most of the other distros available today.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[Gleng]

That the real problem, it's not getting stuff to work, is getting rid of it when it's not needed anymore.

Then use Checkinstall to build packages from source for your distribution.

I know it can build .deb, .rpm, and .tgz files. The process is simple on slackware:

• ./configure
• make
• checkinstall --newslack

I imagine the process is almost identical on other systems. Afterwards, you can just use your package manager to remove unwanted packages. No one has to chuck files all over their systems anymore. ;)

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[kundor]

Debian needs to stop thinking they have a monopoly on these things. Gentoo, Mandrake Cooker, and many other distros offer the exact same abilities. And most of their one-command installers are easier to use than apt-get.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[sHADOW20044]

That the real problem, it's not getting stuff to work, is getting rid of it when it's not needed anymore.

If you dont mind compiling from sources, but uninstalling is your headache you could take a look at checkinstall

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[sHADOW20044]

Can I somehow install Debian on that box via SSH?

google + remote install linux

Maybe you can also get the computer booted with some Linux LiveCD and ssh started on it. I hope this helps you a bit.

Offtopic: I still like my first linux distro that was slackware, started with it 2 years ago. Now im happy gentoo user for 1 year and i still look for intresting distros that i like to try out when i got the time.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[tzanger]

That's all nice... *if* you're using Slackware packages all the way. The fundamental problem doesn't really lie in Slackware's package management. It even has an 'apt' now, named 'slackpkg'. The problem for me lies in the poor availability of packages for Slackware compared to other distributions like RedHat and Debian.

Have you not heard of CheckInstall?! Anything I put on my Slackware box is in package form. If I have to compile something (this includes Perl modules) I build from source and then use CheckInstall to install. For Perl modules it's just a little wrapper script I have that won't eat perllocal.pod. It's trivial to make Slackware packages and it's trivial to keep any Slackware system that the admin has been wise enough to use packages up to date. Seriously. Check it out. I dislike the RPM/DEB package system because of the dependencies. it's too much work to make decent packages. Slackware eliminates this and really, what's so difficult about seeing "libfoo.so not found" and installing the foo package? Not for newbies, granted, but for any admin it's not a big deal. At all.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[tzanger]

Some of you may like to compile from source. I think it's tedious, especially when some pieces of software I've attempted to compile want me to spend hours compiling 10 other libraries first.

I agree with you completely. However, I want you to give me some real examples of programs you want and aren't available as Slackware packages, especially any which require "hours compiling 10 other libraries first" -- Slackware has a very decent set of library packages and I'll be very surprised if you can give me some concrete examples where there already exists .debs or even NON-RH RPMs -- A lot of weird software has RedHat packages simply because RH is synonymous with Linux for many companies.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

With Debian, I don't have to compile at all. No matter how trivial compilation is, it's still a process that lasts for a while. If you look at my initial parent post, I've talked about the different issues.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[tzanger]

With Debian, I don't have to compile at all.

If and only if the package already exists for Debian, which is exactly the same with *any* distribution that works with packages, Slackware included.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

Of course. But the availability differs between distributions. And Slackware doesn't care much for dependencies. I've heard much negative talk of .rpm. I've hardly heard anything about bad about .deb. Everyone seems to recommend it wherever I look. dpkg/apt seems to receive a lot of praise. Though RedHat seems to be one of few distributions for which packages are widely available, Debian feels less commercial to me, and it allows me to customize it without bypassing much of any built-in system mechanisms.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[tzanger]

Of course. But the availability differs between distributions.

Naturally. However sites like SlackPacks and LinuxPackages show that Slackware's really not in the minority for package availability.

And Slackware doesn't care much for dependencies.

What's that got to do with what we're talking about?

...Debian feels less commercial to me, and it allows me to customize it without bypassing much of any built-in system mechanisms.

As does any distro -- but you sidestep the internal mechanisms and you end up with a problem where the built-in tools either screw up the configuration when you upgrade, or they fail altogether. Precisely the reason why so many people enjoy Slackware -- there are no internal mechanisms save for very few, very THIN ones used right at install time. There's no "duality" to compete with. And the lack of dependencies helps here, believe it or not.

Re:Actually a *big* problem

[ThJ]

In general, I can agree about annoying internal mechanisms overwriting your configuration files... In Debian's case, well, the tools it provides for configuration are rather good. In some cases, they just respectfully modify what you did, or add to it. In the places where they locked a file in to a configuration tool, they've also made sure you can either disable it gracefully, or made sure that it isn't nessecary to.

Text of third page

[Anonymous Coward]

Page 3: Final Ruling

--
VectorLinux 4.3 - Rocket Fueled Slackware

Last update: 10-28-2004
Submitted by MadAdmin

Final Ruling

Overall, I'd say that VectorLinux 4.3 (like all previous versions) is a winner. I've always been a fan of this distribution for the simple fact that it has the potential to save me money. Let's face it, this release costs only $24.97USD (available Now on their site) and it will easily resurrect old equipment that would otherwise be tossed aside in favor of a newer more expensive model... so not only did you save on the cost of the operating system and its applications, but you've also just saved the total cost of a new computer, its operating system, and applications. Not such a bad deal at all if you ask me.

Their selection of applications is in keeping with the minimalistic nature of the distribution. There are just enough to get done whatever job you need to accomplish and nothing more. Additional packages are widely available on the Internet in source code format or native Slackware TGZ from sites such as LinuxPackages.net. It's been my experience so far that packages built for Slackware 10 work very well on VectorLinux 4.3, so there's definitely no lack of software/support for this distribution. Concerning support, the forums on the Vector site are among the best available. I beat this distribution up pretty badly while I reviewed it to see what it would do and what it wouldn't as far as Slackware software packages were concerned and was pleasantly surprised to find that most of them work fine. KDE 3.x for Slackware (as well as the VL 3.3 version that I mentioned earlier) works great, as does Dropline Gnome 2.8.0. It ran very well once I got everything in order with X Windows. One thing to note here is that the full Dropline install will update your Xfree86 install to X.org. This isn't a really huge concern until you attempt to user VASM to configure X. It no longer functions... but that's a given and you've been warned. Other than that it performs flawlessly. All in all I give VectorLinux a rating of four stars (out of five). This is an extremely high mark for an extremely well built distribution. The only things keeping it from a 5 star rating are (developers take heed) lack of a standard login manager, misleading wording during installation, lack of Mozilla Firefox (this is a serious offense in my book), and more attractive theming on all of the desktops. Vector has never been an attractive desktop to look at out of the box and a little well placed theming and branding would do wonders for it. On the upside, its a fast, stable Linux distribution with so much to offer. It runs on almost anything with RAM and a CPU, and is dirt cheap... at just under $30USD you'd be hard pressed to find a better deal.

Well done VectorLinux. Well done. I look forward to the next review!

Overall Rating:

Features
3 stars
Performance
5 stars
Usability
4 stars
Overall Value
5 stars
Total Score
4 stars

Product name: VectorLinux 4.3 Deluxe
Manufacturer: VectorLinux
Price: $24.97 USD (standard version is available free of charge)
Availability: Now

About the author...
Reviewed by Adam Doxtater - Co-author of Snort 2.1 Intrusion Detection 2nd Edition, Snort 2.0 Intrusion Detection and MCSE Designing Windows 2000 Directory Services by Syngress/Osbourne/McGraw-Hill. Adam is the founder and Chief Technology Editor of Mad PenguinTM. To contact Adam for interviews and/or consultation he is available on a first-come/first-serve basis, and can be contacted here.

Use AMD

[cyber_rigger]

AMD runs linux just fine.

Re:Use AMD

[Norgus]

Most of the old hardware that is lying around and is easy to grab is pentium.
That might well be why these things usually highlight the old pentiums/celerons.

Re:How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[gp310ad]

EASY as PIE

Download a recent stable kernel of the flavor you prefer. 2.4, 2.6, ... from kernel.org

Configure for your hardware and needs.

Compile

Install

Here on the crunching crusoe laptop I'm running Fedora Core 2 with:

[localuser@localhost localuser]$ uname -a
Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.10-rc1 #1 Fri Oct 29 12:30:23 EDT 2004 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Re:How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[Stevyn]

Gentoo is what you want. You can optimize the kernel as well as tweak your /etc/make.conf so gcc can use special optimizations.

But all this isn't going to work straight out of the box. You'll have to compile the software yourself which will take hours to days, depending on speed and the amount of software you want to get a full system/window manager/browser/word processor going.

Good find

[Kujila]

It's good to see a modern-day Linux distro that can run properly (and quickly) on older machines... Some of the newer distros seem suited for today's PC market rather than yesterday's PC market. ;)

Re:Good find

[bot24]

Yes, but unfortunately it won't be done downloading untill today's PC's are last year's PC's. When will this be available on BitTorrent? I am currently getting a maximum speed of 20KB/s.

Re:Good find

[Kujila]

When their servers chill-out a bit, and there's a decent DL speed, I'll probably snag it. I really like these 1-CD distros...I'm sick of spending three-hours downloading multiple CD's :(

Another notable 1-CD Distro is Xandros...it lacked the expandability I wanted, so I dumped it, but it's still a rather nice little Linux Distro, especially for beginners and Windows-converts. :)

VectorLin**no carrier**

[darth_silliarse]

VectorLinux, petrol fueled servers. Bleh.

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[Jason1729]

I'm running slackware on an AMD 5x86 133 MHz. It's a 486 CPU. It works perfectly as a firewall, file server, and test webserver (which is all the functionality I expect from it).

Why would I want to waste $150 upgrading the hardware and who knows how many hours configuring a resource hog version of linux just to get it to do exactly what it does now?

Download the WiredCD: wiredcd.itallconnects.com

It'll even run on old Pentiums! Woo hoo!

[Not_Wiggins]

FINALLY, I can stop using my old P75 as a very efficient doorstop, install this distro and crunch one SETI packet every 2 years!

Re:Grammar Nazi time

[Anonymous Coward]

"New RIAA File-swapping Suits Target Students"

That's totally ambiguous - a "Suit" is any corporate person. Could have been the launch of a marketing campaign, lawsuits, or the formation of a death squad.

If it had said "Lawsuits" I would agree that it's a clear headline.

-J

Re:How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[manitoulinnerd]

i'm using gentoo right not on an 1800+ and it takes a good day to compile everything, It would take a good week to have it going on a P133. Gentoo is great and all but try not to push it to much, it gives all of us a bad name.

did anyone else notice this?

[Anti_zeitgeist]

"Even old Pentium PCs run well on this distro" What ever happened to software that ran on hardware rather then the opposite?....haha

RIGHT ON

[Biff98]

I love it. Slackware has always been my favorite distro, despite the fact that I'm not a Linux guy. Seeing the ISO is just over 300MB definitely catch- es my eye. I'm thinking, "this is exactly what I'm looking for."

Downloading the ISO right now -- I'm optimistic.

-Steve

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[zakezuke]

If you sunk $150 into the old hardware and upgraded it to new, you'd have a quicker machine and wouldn't have to sacrifice functionality and features just to get that old dinosaur PIII to crawl from its own ashes again.

Assuming you have the cash, skill, time, and a desktop then yes. $150 could easily get you into an amd 1700+ cpu, motherboard, and 256megs of memory.

But then you have this old dinosaur PIII motherboard laying about. What happens to it esp after you decide to upgrade the hard drive and video?

A more Eco-friendly solution would be to slap your spare parts in a case and sell / donate / give it to someone else, and now we are back to square one, still having an old clunker in need of an operating system.

Complete text mirror

[SilentBob4]

The server appears to be up and down so heres a complete mirror I grabbed a few minutes ago:

As time pushes onward, the computer word grows exponentially in size, accomplishments, features, advances, and of course... system requirements. The latter is more a burden than a benefit if you ask most people who have the pleasure of working with computers day in and day out, but the Linux community has a decided advantage over most: They have the ability to control their destiny and the hardware it will run on.

Sure, some of you will immediately say "X or Y distro is bloated to the point that is comparable with Microsoft Windows at this point" and you aren't wrong for saying so. Linux has grown to a size where it can easily put Windows to shame in terms of sheer girth. Linux in the year 2004 has more bells and whistles than Windows could ever dream of, and that's not a bad thing... unless you are the proud owner of hardware that Thomas Edison would be able to easily identify in a line up.

So what do you do with that old Pentium II 266MHz laptop or PC that's been stashed in your closet for the past three years? Is it possible to actually use it again as a worthwhile companion for performing everyday tasks that your new 3GHz computer handles so easily? Well, the full answer could be very complicated if we were to cover ever last little detail, but the short answer is simple: YES.

VectorLinux can (and always has been able to) take an old dinosaur of a computer and render it just as useful as the day that it was new. Seriously. Built on Slackware Linux, one of the most stable and best performing distributions available today, VectorLinux has been optimized to the point that it outperforms every other distro I've tested on older equipment... without fail. So, if you've got an older computer that you were getting ready to throw out the door, dust it off, purchase a copy of VectorLinux, and bring it back to life.

Features:

* Linux kernel 2.6.7
* Glibc-2.3.2
* Gcc 3.2.3
* XFree 4.3
* KDE 3.2.3, XFCE 4, Fluxbox, and ICEwm
* Mozilla 1.7
* VASM

Installation
If you've ever installed VectorLinux before, you know the installer. It hasn't really changed much over the past couple of years that we've been monitoring it. It's simple, GUI-less, to the point, and lacks advanced options. Is this a bad thing? In some cases with certain distros, yes, but in the case of VectorLinux it's not even a concern. The reason being is that this distro is so stripped down as it is, fine tuning packages and settings after the installation takes just as much time as it would during the install, and there really isn't much to it anyway.

For those of you who are reading this and have never installed VectorLinux, don't be intimidated by the lack of a pretty graphical installer. The Vector installation is completely simple, even without the GUI, and any user with a basic understanding of Linux will have no problem installing it. The only 'gotcha' I noticed (and I've complained about this in past reviews... nothing has changed) is that after partitioning the drive(s) you come to a prompt that is a bit confusing to the newcomer... it's a multiple choice screen which has the following options:

RETURN Return to the partition program. I want to try again
REBOOT Reboot the system to add the new partitions
RESTART Don't know how I got here but I want out

To most people (including myself), restart means reboot... but obviously there is already an option for rebooting, so what exactly does it do? Restart the installer? Well, sort of. What it means in VectorLand is continue on with the next step of the installation. I stumbled on it the first time I saw it, but can now easily navigate through it since I've reviewed this distro so many times. I guess the developers have seen this so many times as well that they don't even realize it's there. Other than that single issue, the installer is flawless. On the few machines

Re:Complete text mirror

[SilentBob4]

Looks like they have the server running ok now, so ya'll should be able to read :)

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[GreatBunzinni]

Why should I spend $150 on something if what I already have does the job quite well?

Re:How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have said an ENTIRE distro ALREADY optimized AND NOT having to compile EVERY package (except maybe the kernel). Something similar to Mandrake's ORIGINAL mission (optimized RH), but for modern processors.

Gentoo... no thanks... I have better things to do with my computer cycles.

RULE

[steveha]

There is also the RULE project: Run Up-to-date Linux Everywhere.

http://www.rule-project.org/

But this seems to mostly be a labor of love for a small group of developers... in other words, it's not progressing quickly.

At the moment you can make a RULE install of Red Hat Linux 8 or 9. What's cool is that they made an installer that can run in 12 MB of RAM!

They said they are working on Fedora Core 2, but I don't know when they will be done.

I am a Debian fan so I found the Red Hat-ness of RULE a bit uncomfortable. But if you like Red Hat then by all means check this out.

steveha

Slackware Is WYSIWYG

[reallocate]

The thing about Slackware is that it is essentially WYSIWYG. Wanna change your configuration? OK, edit something. Sure, it's got a rudimentary config tool in "pkgtool', but that's just a simple front end to tasks that can be done just as easily by hand. E.g., don't want to start some service at boot? Just flip the executable flag on the init script in /etc/rc.d.

The thing about Debian, or Fedora, or whatever, is that you need to spend time learning how to do things the Debian way, or the Fedora way, or the Whatever way. They are not WYSIWYG.

To each his own, but I like the simplicity and straightforward style of Slackware.

What about a laptop?

[SnakeJG]

What if your dinosaur PIII is a laptop? Those are much harder to upgrade, and $150 won't do it for you.

Also, you call a PIII a dinosaur!? If all I need my computer to do is office applications and web browsing, a PIII is probably even overkill! A good P-Pro system can still handle those tasks.

Re:What about a laptop?

[Anonymous Coward]

Using logic on a woman is like getting a fish to ride a bicycle, or something like that.

Re:What about a laptop?

[bhtooefr]

Amen, brother.

OK, if the P3 laptop didn't have much RAM or a tiny hard drive, I'd upgrade those, but a P3 is still DAMN powerful for most things - I had a friend that even gamed heavily on a Celeron 533 laptop (I THINK it was a Coppermine, but it might have been a Mendocino). Granted, it had a decent (for the time, and for a laptop - it was an ATI Rage Mobility) GPU, but still - he could play stuff like UT:GOTY (damn fun, just finished running up to people and blowing their heads off with a sniper rifle ;-)).

I wish my desktop WERE a P3 - it's a Pentium MMX 233. I know, that's DAMN slow.

Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[reallocate]

There's nothing Gentoo offers regarding configuration and optimization that I can't do in Slackware.

Except, that is, lose 36 hours waiting for my machine to be usable again.

What's the value of waiting hours for the Gentoo build to optimize some app I will never use? I can do a complete Slackware install, download, config and compile kernel source in just about an hour. That makes a difference. Waiting for Gentoo to "optimize", say. 14 different text editors is a waste of my time.

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[Stevyn]

The base install of gentoo is very minimal actually. The only text editor they include initially is nano. The only apps you install once the base install is complete are ones you specifically ask for. One of their goals for the project is to give the user choice so they don't have to install a bunch of crap they don't use.

I don't think you know what you're talking about and are just spreading bs.

Why?

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, maybe a minimal system is installed, but updates are compiled. If I have a 133 I do not want to wait for the machine to compile updates.

Why not use a distro where all of the compiling has been done for you - especailly on a slower system?

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[reallocate]

I've installed and used Gentoo, more than once. It offers nothing that can compensate for the hours and hours alloted to build time.

The base install of Gentoo is essentially useless, and is intended only to populate your drive with the minimum of software needed to do a real install.

If I wish, I can select or deselect each individual package available in a Slackware install. I.e., the only apps installed are the ones I ask for. That's the same choice Gentoo offers.

To repeat: Nothing happens during a Gentoo install that can't be duplicated by simply installing the same software from source. Gentoo's problem is that it makes you wait hours while it compiles and optimizes programs that you either won't use or won't notice are faster unless you run a benchmark program.

Why should I spend hours waiting for an "optimization" I'll never notice?

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[Perky_Goth]

why should you wait? it's not like the PC is unusable while it's updating...

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[Justus]

I will admit that the base install of Gentoo is quite sparse, but as you said, that's only intended to give you the option to populate your drive with programs you really do want.

However, it also doesn't take particularly long to install--if you do a stage3 install. Stage3 will avoid compiling and optimizing "all those programs you won't use or won't notice" (this includes, say, gcc) and only require you to compile a syslogger, cron daemon (if you wish), and the kernel. From that point on, any compilation is for programs you presumably (since you told it to install them) will use.

You can argue that compiling software in general takes too long (possibly true, but if that's not your bag, there's always Debian) and that optimizations don't really do very much (also quite true, but in my case, for example, I use Gentoo because I like its 'feel' and I prefer Portage to apt), but the Gentoo install in no way forces you to sit through all the compilation and optimization that stage1 and 2 do.

Also, there are binary repositories out there for Gentoo (not run by the Gentoo folks, mind you, but by independent third parties), so you can enjoy the benefits of running Gentoo without all that damn compiling, if you trust random fellows on the internet. The bottom line is that yes, Gentoo compiles a lot, being a source-based distribution, but they don't tend to force you into anything that the other source-based distributions don't require.

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[mattyrobinson69]

i have a suggestion for you: done emerge 14 different text editors. nano is just fine (use the -w flag though)

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[reallocate]

You can't use what's not there, beginning with the kernel.

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[reallocate]

Does anyone on Slashdot actually read anything?

No, I did not argue that compilations take too long or that optimizations don't really do much. I argued that there is nothing going on in Gentoo's scripted build process that can't be duplicated by simply compiling from source. I argued that there are no unique Gentoo optimizations. If that is not correct, please advise.

I also argued, correctly, that Slackware does not "force" me to install software I don't want to use. If I choose, I can make an install decision about each individual package. The same can be said for SUSE, Fedora, etc. I suppose products like Knoppix don't allow this, but they are targetting a different kind of user.

Does Gentoo install from source? Yes, and I can install from source with any distribution. Does Gentoo use optimizations? Tes, and I can use the same optimizations when I build from source. Does Gentoo avoid installing software that I have not selected? Yes, and so do many other distributions.

Like I said, nothing unique there.

Re:Nothing Unique About Gentoo Optimizations

[Justus]

Does anyone on Slashdot actually read anything?

Apparently not, yourself included.

From the post I replied to:

To repeat: Nothing happens during a Gentoo install that can't be duplicated by simply installing the same software from source. Gentoo's problem is that it makes you wait hours while it compiles and optimizes programs that you either won't use or won't notice are faster unless you run a benchmark program.

So, yes, you did say that nothing happens during a Gentoo install which can't be duplicated. You'll also note that I didn't argue this point. What I was addressing was your next claim, that "Gentoo's problem is that it makes you wait hours while it compiles ..." (emphasis mine). Gentoo doesn't make you wait any more than any other source-based distribution does (the waiting implicit in all source-based distributions is, of course, the compiling). As I said in my post, you can skip through pretty much all of that compilation during the install (with a stage3 install) and during actual use (by utilizing binary package repositories). Therefore, your statement is incorrect.

You will also note that nowhere in my post did I state that the process behind what Gentoo is doing is unique. You may refute that argument as much as you wish (I won't stand in your way, don't worry), but it will have no bearing on what I've said. Additionally, I did not say that you argued that the compilations took too long. From my original post:

You can argue that compiling software in general takes too long ...

I was attempting to address another common concern with Gentoo, one which relates to what you said ("Why should I spend hours waiting ..."), but not actually implying that you had a serious issue with it. My apologies if it appeared as though I was trying to put words in your mouth.

I also argued, correctly, that Slackware does not "force" me to install software I don't want to use.

I never argued that Slackware forced you into installing software you don't want to use or that Gentoo offers more choice than Slackware (or innumerable other distributions). I said that Gentoo, like Slackware, doesn't force things on you either, be it package selection or having to sit through a bunch of compiles during an install.

Strange quote

[r3m0t]

"As time pushes onward, the computer word grows exponentially in size, accomplishments, features, advances, and of course... system requirements."

It's always fit into a char[8] for me. I've been able to take advantage of the computer word for a long, long time.

Re:Strange quote

[jswalter9]

Where's my mod points when I need 'em?

Insightful? Try funny. Actually quite funny.

Re:Strange quote

[r3m0t]

Somebody recently told me that because karma is apparently not awarded for Funny posts (probably because that would be too easy?) people are beginning to mod them other +1s.

Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even old Pentium PCs run well on this distro.

As a Grammar Nazi, this deeply offends me.

Correction:
This distro runs well even on old Pentium PCs.
Alternative:
Even old Pentium PCs run this distro well.

Re:Ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

As an Imagination Nazi, this deeply offends me.

Even old cars run well on gasoline.
Even old college students run well on coffee.
Even old Pentium PCs run well on this distro.

Etc.

How to set up a lean Debian system

[steveha]

First, get a Debian installer. Install a Debian base system.

When the installer offers you the chance to install additional software, say no.

When the install is finished, you will have a minimal system, with a kernel and the most needed utilities. Most importantly, you will have Debian's APT tools (apt-get, etc.) with which to get more software.

Login as root, and run this command:

apt-get install aptitude

This will install a tool called aptitude, which is a friendly character-based (ncurses) package manager. You can search through packages, drill down through the hierarchy, see what depends on what, etc. aptitude is way, way better than dselect!

With Debian, you can install just enough stuff to run. For example, using apt-get or aptitude, you can ask for Gnumeric (the GNU spreadsheet for GNOME) and the system will install just enough of GNOME for Gnumeric to run. (Libraries and such.) If you manually install something like Xfce or IceWM, you can then run GNOME applications without a full-blown GNOME environment. The same goes for KDE.

With Debian, it is possible to recompile all your packages for your computer, but the tools to do it aren't as convenient as the tools in Gentoo. But it is convenient to compile your own kernel, and that's most of the battle right there.

If you want to set up a server, and know exactly what is installed and running on the server, Debian is ideal.

steveha

What to run?

[steveha]

I already described how to set up a lean Debian system. But I would like suggestions on what would be the best system to run on a desktop computer with old hardware.

Here is what I think I know about this. A while ago I tried several systems on a Pentium 233 with 64MB of RAM.

GNOME -- if you can install enough memory (I recommend at least 256 MB) then this is actually a reasonable way to go, even on an older computer. But if you have a computer with limited RAM and no convenient way to upgrade it, stay away. (Maybe if you like GNOME 1.x, and can find it somewhere... no, I don't think so.)

Xfce -- getting better. Smaller, faster than GNOME. But when I tried it, it was still slower than I wanted.

IceWM -- actually, pretty nice! But IceWM itself is a window manager, and you need more than just that. So I suggest combining IceWM with ROX.
I used ROX filer a few years ago, and I loved the speed. The whole ROX system looks pretty slick, and it's fast!

ROX is complicated enough to install (only old packages for Debian; they want to you use a new system called ZeroInstall now) that I didn't do a full-on install test of it. But if I had an actual need to run a desktop system on old hardware, I'd definitely use ROX plus IceWM.

But if you know something even better, please add a comment about it!

steveha

Re:What to run?

[robochan]

My old laptop had simliar specs. I ran blackbox wm on it, which was nice and speedy. It's simple, fast and no frills. Blackbox+ half a dozen themes is about a 250k package,and you don't waste overhead on needless eyecandy.
For file management, I discovered XFE (formerly XWC) - it's lean, fast, and as frilled as you need it to be, short of goofy html backgrounds and such. Opera for browsing all the way - low overhead and fast. Mutt for email.
If I was still using that same machine, I'd try out Xfce4 on it. I hadn't discovered that wm at that time, but I bet it runs great on those specs. I'd still stick with XFE and Opera though.

Re:What to run?

[saintlupus]

I would suggest a slightly different route -- I use Windowmaker on my elderly Powerbook (400MHz G3) and it's smooth as can be. And ROX-Filer installes fine if you grab the RPMs and use alien to convert them into debs.

--saint

Re:What to run?

[Anonymous Coward]

Debian has a package with ROX filer. You can install that. It's not the latest version, but it works just fine.

Remote Debian Installs

[Q2Serpent]

Can I somehow install Debian on that box via SSH?

Sure - there is a script, called debootstrap, that will take a debian mirror and the set you want (stable, testing, etc), and install a minimal debian system in a directory of your choice.

This means that you can mount a new partition somewhere, fill it with a minimal debian, chroot to it, apt-get what you want, customize it, and set up a boot loader. Then, cross your fingers, and reboot.

Here's a good page to read that walks through the steps.

If anyone has tried them both...

[zogger]

..how does Vector compare to Feather Linux?

Yes, I know Feather is a live Cd, it's hard drive installable though, and only 64 megs total size default. It runs well on my older machines, but I want something even better, something that will run with some sort of GUI with as little as 16 megs RAM, which some of my older pentium 1's have. I have found with various experimentation that total RAM is way more important than processor speed. I run a 200PP as my main machine, because it has the most RAM of my boxes, and it is running full bloaterized FedoraC2 just fine. When I was first using it with factory supplied dismal level RAM at 32 megs it just plain wouldn't run GUI linux very well, but after I added an additional two sticks one of 64 and one of 128 megs, THEN it worked well.

but...still interested in finding something really decent to make these old machines functional, so I can give them away without sticking 95 or 98 on them.

PIII dinosaur?

[YrWrstNtmr]

PIII 850 was my main machine until last week. Vid editing, development, CAD, etc, etc.

My 'dinosaur machines' are a 133 laptop, a P2/400 IPCop firewall, and a P2/400 practice/test box.

Not everyone upgrades to the latest and greatest every month.

Vector for a PVR

[skroob]

I've decided to use this new version of Vector for my PVR project. Mostly because I want to keep the OS out of the way of the video stuff, and hopefully this will be low-cycle enough to handle it.

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[zakezuke]

Presumably some sort of ancient bacteria. With this in mind, they'll probably find primitive 386s on Mars in 20 years...

Would that be the the 386dx with the 32bit bus or the SX with a 16bit bus?

Hey, AntiMStroll got it right!

[Anonymous Coward]

That AC post above is not insightful at all.

Let me put it simply: I _am_ a power user (at least concerning to finding patches, applying them and recompiling with optimising options) -- and I won't do this.

The very reason is because I know I can do it, so this is not a challenge to me. Instead, I'll put my time to better use, doing things I'm in doubt I can and which others are having a hard time with.

So, it pays off to use a specially tuned distro like VL. And Mandrake is excellent (I use it and will keep using -- it already "saved my life" more than once), but it is too featureful.

More than that, Linux server distros are _not_ like desktop ones. Alas, this is what is holding back M$, too: server space is a new territory for them, they only know (ha!) desktop space.

So, a desktop distro should be remarkably different from a server one. Bundling the two in one single CD-set is not advisable, IMO. Do you read this, Bruce? Two differently adjusted [kernel+modules] sets!

Let's see how things turn out...

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

This caught my eye:
and is optimized to run well on older hardware. Even old Pentium PCs run well on this distro
Not because I want to spend way more than is practical to upgrade an old box, but because it will run on old computers, and perhaps on a lot of different computers.
Why is this important? What has come about to make me want to know if it will run, etc.
Download the latest Damn Small Linux, burn it to CD, and get back in here with your results as to whether or not it runs on your box!

Just a data point

[gribbly]

I'm running Vector Linux on a very old Toshiba laptop. Pentium 90, 16MB RAM. It's not blazingly fast, but it works, even running KDE =]

grib.

It goes to 11

[Noksagt]

Rocket Fueled Slackware

Whenever I hear about some new performance-tuned distro (this, Lunar Linux, Gentoo (which I do actually run), etc.), I feel like I'm stuck in Spinal Tap with some braindedad rocker telling me "It goes to 11." Only this time beloved Nigel Tumfel is a pale, skinny nerd who can't blame the drugs and STDs for brainrot, and is only able to stammer an apology for sounding like a (bad) marketing weenie. Do phrases like "rocket powered" really sound good to anyone out there?

Re:It goes to 11

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't off topic. It makes a valid criticism of the article title. Unlike parent, I'd love to try the distro, but I agree that they need to rethink their marketing.

Re:It goes to 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally I'd agree but in this case it is offtopic for one reason: The review has nothing to do with VectorLinux marketing... at all. Check out the URL. It reads MadPenguin.org, not VectorLinux.com. Maybe the article title is a bit cheesy, but aren't they all? On the topic of marketing I honestly don't think VL markets their software at all, at least not that I've seen anyway. So why pick on them?

Oh, and regarding your comments about the author (at least I think that's who you were commenting on. If not, then kindly disregard), you're way off base there too. I happen to know him (well, I've met him anyway) and the description you give doesn't even come close. This guy is probably the closest thing to a rock star the Linux world has ever seen (you have to meet him to understand hehe). So if his brain is rotted, I'm sure it's from either several overdoses or something similar at least hahaha :)

Re:It goes to 11

[Noksagt]

Unlike parent, I'd love to try the distro

I'm not that close-minded. I'd be happy to try it too. It is just a real turn off to hear about the "rocket fuel."

Re:It goes to 11

[Noksagt]

Normally I'd agree but in this case it is offtopic for one reason: The review has nothing to do with VectorLinux marketing... at all.

Fair enough. My comment was on the /. story, not TFA. I consider comments on the submitted story to be fair game, but it is fine that some don't feel this way.

On the topic of marketing I honestly don't think VL markets their software at all, at least not that I've seen anyway. So why pick on them?

This is somewhat fair, but all distros (and especially community-based distros) are marketed by the users. It isn't the gentoo core team who goes around sharing their l33t CFLAGS. Perhaps my blame was misdirected--it is meant to apply to some (very vocal) users of the distro.

Oh, and regarding your comments about the author (at least I think that's who you were commenting on. If not, then kindly disregard)

Nope--talking about that (minority of?) users who leave me withafoul taste again.

Re:It goes to 11

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair enough. My comment was on the /. story, not TFA. I consider comments on the submitted story to be fair game, but it is fine that some don't feel this way.

Point well taken. I would agree with you on that... sorry, I just thought you were saying that the review site was marketing. Totally understand bud, and thanks for clearing up :)

Re:How about a distro strictly optimized for...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those threadless apps suck big time esp those employing svgalib as nothing else can talk to the video while you're using them...

Old Pentiums...

[nurb432]

FreeBSD runs great on the 'old' hardware too..

eh?

[robochan]

I have not tested Vector yet, but my experiences with KDE 3.3 on Gentoo and SuSE on my Homebox (a PIII-866 with 384MB) haven't been too well.
Really? Methinks you need to optimize your compile settings or something, or use a better vid card. Perhaps you're running a ton of services that you needn't? The Debian Sid Laptop (HP Omnibook 6000) that I'm typing this on runs KDE more than splendidly. The only major tweaking I've done is a custom kernel.

Specs:
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep name
model name : Pentium III (Coppermine)
$ cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep MHz
cpu MHz : 696.986
$ cat /proc/meminfo |grep MemTotal
MemTotal: 386124 kB
$ lspci |grep VGA
0000:01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64)
$ dpkg -l kdelibs4 |grep ii
ii kdelibs4 3.3.0-2 KDE core libraries

Current Running Services:
$ ls /etc/rc3.d/
S10sysklogd S20apmd S20makedev S89cron S20cupsys S99rmnologin
S11klogd S20autofs S20no-ip S99kdm S99stop-bootlogd
S20acpid S20ifplugd S20ssh S99linuxlogo

mplayer modularity

[mailman-zero]

I agree that projects like mplayer, SDL, etc, would do well to make it so one doesn't have to recompile for each option. Maybe a config file specification to locations of certain .so files along with options to enable or disable certain vo and ao drivers and the like would be a more modular solution. But it doesn't fix the problem, because numerous programs still requre recompilation to get certain unctionality out of them.

Try NT 4.0

[walterbyrd]

On 120mhz system with 64mb of RAM, NT 4.0 is very snappy. And it's a lot more like XP than any version of Linux. Try running MS-Office-97 on your 166mhz VectorLinux System.

NT 4.0 works on everything from 486 on up

[walterbyrd]

Runs practically all ms-windows programs.

I like linux, but it's not linux is the only OS that will run on older hardware.

Environmentalism is about more than just the box.

[Stormbringer]

Agreed, keeping old boxes as production-not-pollution is environment-friendly. The lower power consumption of those older boxes is environment-friendly too, though.

Pull open an older box with a Socket-5 Pentium (say, 75 MHz) in it and look at the thermal components -- heatsinks, fans, etc. There's very little there: in a unit on-hand here, there's just one fan for PS and one for chassis, the CPU only has a heatsink, and it's the only mobo component (other than voltage regulators) that has one.

Compare that with what's in even a PII box: more fans including the one on the CPU, more and heavier heatsinking, and at least one chipset component is heatsunk. If it's got an AGP card, there's probably a heatsink there too.

Even without an AC ammeter, you can visually estimate which machine is going to put a smaller hit on your electricity bill, and thus your environment, when it's put into 24/7 service for something like a firewall or a HA controller, just by what it takes to get rid of the heat it throws off.

slack+$25 box = firewall

[baomike]

A $25 box from St Vincent dePaul add slack, another
ether card and you have a good router/firewall.
Using iptables snort etc.

Hmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me see what tortuous logic led to my -1 moderation...

Rocket fueled Debian

[po8]

Portland State Aerospace Society

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[myukew]

PIII a dinosaur? LMAO! I'm running on a AMD K6 II @ 500mhz and it works fine! My dinosaur is a 286 laptop @ 16mhz w/ 4mb ram, though I can't find any version of linux to run on it (seems as if linux /needs/ 8mb to boot... damn) it's still ...usefull... running win3.11 and word 6 I can still do textediting/printing &stuff. Man, if I had a PIII... what a wonderful world

Thanks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you, whoever you might be, for correcting an error...

minimum Debian or OpenBSD might work

[HighOrbit]

I've had some success with this.

Install a base debian system. When the installer asks if you want to install extra packages only select the base X packages. Once the system is installed and booted up, then install Fluxbox or IceWM using apt-get. They are both lightweight windowing environments. I'm partial to fluxbox myself.

You could also do the same with OpenBSD. I find a minimum OpenBSD to be *very* lean and fast. The package manager in OpenBSD is pkg_add.

Re:minimum Debian or OpenBSD might work

[zogger]

thanks for the tip. I have heard this before, so maybe I will try it now. I'm on dialup so that is a consideration, and the older machines only have floppy drives, although I could open them up and just hang a cd drive on them temporary..I *would* like to try a network install though, never have done that, pick a long weekend I guess...

Re:Why bother with old hardware?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux is a 32-bit OS; the 286 was 16-bit. You need at least a 386.