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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."
dumb terminals being the excuse of old hardware addicts everywhere :-)
seriously, how many dumb terminals do you need?!?
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.