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Modern Linux Distribution for (Very) Old Computers
macemoneta writes "The blueflops floppy-based distribution may be just what many Slashdot users are looking for, to revive old hardware. This is a 2.6.11-7 kernel based tiny distribution, that runs very well on my ancient 486sx25 with just 8MB of RAM. It's text-mode only, at the moment, but it does support hard drive installation, and includes an ssh2 client (dropbear)! Many distributions have moved away from boot floppy support, indicating that the 2.6 kernel is just too big. This distribution proves that where there's a will, there's a way."
The only caveat about using it as a router would be a quite-a-bit-higher power consumption.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
The problem is, the mathematics and economics of this just don't make sense for most people. Say you do have 12 old Pentiums laying around. 12x133 MHz each, that's only the equivalent of 1600 MHz. You can buy an Athlon XP for $60 that will obliterate this, not even considering that it will have much faster RAM. Seeing that nobody normal would actually have 12 old Pentiums, it would cost less to build a new, better performing, computer. (And be lot less of time investment as well.)
If he dropped VFAT, he could add EXT2 and get some space back for other uses.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
100mbps is equal to a 9x dvd, which I think is a bit more than the compression factor for mpeg. So you could probably do it in full colour with svgalib or something.
I am trolling
I downloaded it and tried it out awhile back. Works Great! Definetly the ticket for older hardware. Biggest problem I had was actually finding clean good floppies to burn the images to, had to go through a pile of them to get any that would work. After that though, fast boot, got online easy, surfed well.
The issue isnt the network its the ram/processing power. mpeg compression needs ~200mhz to decompress a decent quality stream. If its running a dynamic protocol such as X11 or vnc which compresses and decompresses in real time even the fastest systems couldnt really do that effectively. Another issue is that very few network cards can run high utilization without cpu utilization.
300mhz? text only? god, are you kidding? my firewall, my server for proxying into from school, and my webserver are 2 300mhz and 1 450mhz machines respectively. If I wanted to they'd run kde and gnome adequetly (yes I've tried) and they run xfce or wmaker very well if you want graphics. They also serve their current purposes that I use them for very very well. as for buying a new mini-itx machine for 200 as opposed to using old hardware... Believe it or not but these machines still eat less power and its 200 dollars I have to spend on something else. As for other uses, there are lots of schools and hospitals that would be grateful for an infusion of 300mhz machines, even if just for use as internet kiosks (rsrch). You're friend is very foolish to simply throw his machines out, I hope that at least some enterprising dumpster divers got some use out of the hardware.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I use an old 133MHz machine as my web and email server. It's small, quiet, and uses little power. Since I use X to administer it from my Mac, I don't have a display or keyboard attached but I can still use the GUI. Something of this generation doesn't need a special distro - I use Suse, for instance. Yes, a mini-ATX box would do the job, but no better, so I'll hang on to my money and use the old machine.