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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."
OK so X would be nice, but we can still use those old boxes as SSH clients.
Nethack, anyone?
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
They proabably had to apply the -tiny series of 2.6 kernel patches for embedded systems.
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first two posts and first two modding downs .Welcome to slashdot -
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... i digress .
,running on the older systems right up to a 64 cpu server.
It could make a rather nice router if the thing isnt too bulky and you can find an ethernet card or two to go in it (I assume ISA slots) you can also pick up the RAM for probably nothing at local PC shops as they tend to stock pile stuff like this
if however he wants to use it as a test bed for learning linux then go ahead this distro seems perfect. you could even get it running X11 with a minimalist window manager for your gui fix if you try.
Certainly would make an excelent project for getting to grips with the system. I cut my x86 teeth on a 386 and later a 486dx so i have fond memorys of those days , that and doom when i was running dos
Other than that if you want a more productive toy , you can cheap old macs (greybox ppc) or pentium 1 or 2s for next to nothing(ive picked up a couple from people for 0.00).
I really do love distros such as these , they are to me the spirit of linux
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A real use for this (if it is possible) is to configure a lot of older hardware into a cluster for cheap cluster computing. I've thought of this a couple of times, and besides the power issues, and the fact that using old obsolete hardware has its own obstacles, if you have the hardware, its perhaps possible to create a couple of racks of clustered computers. I think that being able to use two or more old motherboards per power supply would help make it more realistic. It is indeed interesting to think that in garages across the world, there could be some serious clusters built on cheap hardware. Serious, in this case, does not mean that they will ever be in contention with deepblue, but it would perhaps speak volumes to the people at SETI? Seriously, if you could do this with 12 old pentiums, would it not pave the way to do it with higher processors but keep the OS overheads very low?
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That doesn't scale.
Its everyone spending $300 vs someone writing fast software.
Because, believe it or not, a 486 has some good usages. Back in the early 1990s, people were using them with DOS and Windows 3.1 and doing word processing, writing spreadsheets, and other productivity jobs. A 486 with MS-DOS, WordPerfect 5.1, and Lotus 1-2-3 can be very productive. Accessing the Internet is also possible with a 486; no, you're not going to run the latest browser with your Flash animations and Java applets and beautiful CSS stylesheets and the like, but they're adequate for viewing text-based sites, checking e-mail, doing some instant messenging, and some other low-resource tasks.
Today, people use 486s for many different usages. A 486 can make a very cheap and effective firewall, or for a Linux/BSD test machine. It can even run X and a lightweight window manager fairly well. No, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice, Java, Firefox, and some other programs aren't going to run at great speeds (you'll need at least a Pentium II for that), but they should do nicely for some very basic tasks. Finally, having a cheap 486 would be pretty nice to explore and to hack.
I wouldn't run a 486 as a production machine today, but I can see some of the advantages of owning and writing software for it. If you like programming, pulling your 486 out of your closet and installing Linux and some development tools can be a very fun experience. Besides, the more developers who still hack around with their old 486s, the better that it is for everyone who still uses old machines (I'm typing this on a 266MHz Pentium II). Imagine if all of the open source developers assumed that everyone has the latest Pentium 4 or Athlon processor? It wouldn't be a pretty sight for a lot of people who can't afford the latest and greatest.
Because the only way that hardware of that level would be useful in any serious ( not router/firewall/fileserver etc. ) application would be to make it run clustered - and make it run well .
Not sure how a router, firewall, and fileserver aren't serious applications. CPU is rarely the bottleneck in an application. There are lots of other slots in a motherboard besides the one for the CPU. Netwok attached storage device, firewall, router, switch, bridge, modem/fax pool, serial console pool, usb hub, dumb terminal, test station, network monitoring station, wireless access point, the list goes on and on. I don't know about you, but I'm all out of expansion slots on my primary desktop machine. And like I said in another post, I've got 15 IDE drives hooked up to my network, try doing that using one desktop machine. I've got a 386 running off a floppy which is routing my DSL connection and providing an IPv6 tunnel. This is something which just isn't supported by my linksys. I've also got a pentium computer in another room which has a wireless NIC and a wired NIC and acts as a bridge so that I don't have to buy a wireless card for every computer in that room. The list of possibilities goes on and on - but CPU is rarely a factor.
You can customize the kernel as you see fit. Remember that these old machines typically have hard drives measuring only a few hundred megabytes, so which file system is used isn't all that important (as long as it's stable).
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Location of dumpster, please. When is next pickup ?