Old machines

[uteck]

After talking to Detox about the problems of installing Linux on an older machine for a noobie, I found this article that covers many of the same topics. I thought I would post it here since it has some nice info on CPU and memory usage that are important to remember for older machines.

Reincarnating a discarded laptop with Linux (http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT6185716632.html)

[fos]

That is a great article. Some folks have also had luck with DSL or DSL-N.

I have an oly TP-760D I might try to rehabilitate.

fos....

[RedAlpha3]

This is a great article. I'm in the process of trying to resurrect a Pentium 111 laptop to help my son with his studies. Whilst it has "reasonable" specs, 900MHz processor, 20Gb Hard drive, DVD Player, it labours when trying to install/use the more user-friendly distros. It rattles along with Slackware but he needs a more forgiving package manager. The article mentions lots of alternatives which I hadn't considered.

Cheers

[fos]

I have decided to try the new version of LFS 6.2-0 on my old Pentium II desktop. I'm sure it will be slow but should make an interesting project. I have already booted the new LiveCD version, the new kernel and xorg seem to be working.

I'm going to keep notes and write a review. With school starting on Monday, I'm sure it will take awhile.

fos...

[danieldk]

Thanks for the article! I'd like to add that I have very good experiences with BSD on old hardware. E.g. I have used a P100 with 48MB RAM running for quite a while as a packet filter and file server. Works great. I also like TextMaker and PlanMaker on old hardware (64MB RAM-ish), as a good substitute for Word of OpenOffice.

[Leon]

Don't forget Word Perfect 8/8.1. Its small (relatively speaking) executable starts and runs fast even with 64 MB of RAM.

I have gotten WP 8.1 installed and running on FreeBSD 5.1 using Linux compatibility. If anyone is interested, I'll post my how-to.

[fos]

I would like that howto Leon.

I still have a boxed distribution of WP 8 for LInux in the garage. The last time I tried to install it I got an error and didn't want to take the time to figure out the dependancies.

I always liked WP back in the DOS days.

fos...

I think this forum needs a Howto section????

[bluesdog]

I think this forum needs a Howto section????
yes !!!!!!!!!! (exclamation marks added because the forum said my original message was too short. ??)

:)

[fos]

Howto Section - Done

See front page.

fos....

[danieldk]

Leon: cool. I have also had Wordperfect running op NetBSD:
http://www.netbsd.org/gallery/in-Action/daniel-wp8.jpg

But I don't know the exact details. I think I used one of the Linux compat packages from pkgsrc that had libc5. Or maybe I used the new and improved 8.1. I have also used TextMaker on NetBSD, it is known to work out of the box with Linux compat. There also is a native version for FreeBSD.

[krp]

I currently use a 333mhz box for my NAT (running LN v2.8) and Firestarter with absolutely zero problems.

[Leon]

I have posted instructions for installing WP8 in FreeBSD in the new How-To forum.

[fos]

Great! Thank you.

fos...

[Red_FoX]

This is a great article. I'm in the process of trying to resurrect a Pentium 111 laptop to help my son with his studies. Whilst it has "reasonable" specs, 900MHz processor, 20Gb Hard drive, DVD Player, it labours when trying to install/use the more user-friendly distros. It rattles along with Slackware but he needs a more forgiving package manager. The article mentions lots of alternatives which I hadn't considered.

Cheers

ive got a few 900 mhz systems, does linux work well with the laptop?

[AndreL]

I have installed Libranet 3.0 (Debian) on a PIII 800MHz desktop and on an old Dell Lattitude 500MHz laptop and they both installed and worked fine since.

I know that Libranet is dead and I cannot tell you anything about the Debian installer but, yes, Linux works well with these machines.
.

[Bullgoose]

I have installed Libranet 3.0 (Debian) on a PIII 800MHz desktop and on an old Dell Lattitude 500MHz laptop and they both installed and worked fine since.

I know that Libranet is dead and I cannot tell you anything about the Debian installer but, yes, Linux works well with these machines.
.

As I said in another post, I have three Toshiba laptops, they all use Linux, but the oldest a Toshiba Satellite 440 (A P-133 w/64 Mb of RAM) is running Libranet 2.8.1 in a full install, it IS pretty slow, but everything works soud and printing work just fine, the macine was GIVEN to me about three years ago, and it works just FINE!!:tongue:

[coyotito]

Good article.
As for win98 he mighty have mentioned 98lite, a program that makes it possible to use the win95 explorer with win98, even eliminating IE and all system components of the M$ web machine completely (pclite.net)
But why DeadRat 8 on a machine like that???????
Why the heck not Libranet 2.8.1 and make use of the Sarge archives? Or Mepis if LN is not available.

[fos]

Coyotito,

You bring up a good point. Are the LN 2.8.1 iso's available?

fos....

PS. It would be nice of Tal to release LN 3.0.

[coyotito]

They had already made them freeware so it shouldn't be illegal.
I would imagine you can still order cd's from linux cd sites ..

I'll check into it

[sammil]

If Tal were to consent, I have ISOs of Libranet 2.7, 2.8, 2.8.1 and 3.0 that I could share. Note, I have no experience of sharing. It might be easier for me to burn copies and snail-mail them.

[danieldk]

Speaking about relatively old machines... I have a fairly good Athlon64 2400+, but want to replace it by a good workstation with SCSI and all. Today I found a

Compaq W6000
2x Pentium 4 Xeon 1.7GHz
512MB ECC RDRAM
2x 36GB SCSI
Adaptec SCSI controller

For about 350 Euro. Can't wait to get that beast to replace my Athlon64.

I prefer good second hand brand machines over fast new white label machines. They are stable, cheap, and it is recycling :). I also have a Dell P4 1.7GHz and an IBM P2 400 that were bought second hand, for, almost nothing.

[coyotito]

this info from me contains an error:
As for win98 he might have mentioned 98lite, a program that makes it possible to use the win95 explorer with win98, even eliminating IE and all system components of the M$ web machine completely (pclite.net)

--the correct link to this modification prog for win98 is http://www.litepc.com

--worth looking at anyway, makes it almost thinkable to run windows .. (they also have an xplite prog)

As for LN 2.8.1 being available, well it should be. LN was the best linux, still has not been surpassed. My opinion is that it should be distributed freely to whoever wants it.

[danieldk]

As for LN 2.8.1 being available, well it should be. LN was the best linux, still has not been surpassed. My opinion is that it should be distributed freely to whoever wants it.

A few days ago I installed Libranet 3.0 in a virtual machine. And I must say that Adminmenu and the installer are still largely unparalleled (especially on Debian systems). Though, API-wise there was some room for improvement, if Libranet still existed, we probably would've abstracted the configuration code more from the interface, making it easier to write console (or web?) frontends.

[coyotito]

Nobody needs to have any scruples about distributing any version of Libranet - it may well prove that this was the high point of linux.

[lisi]

Nobody needs to have any scruples about distributing any version of Libranet - it may well prove that this was the high point of linux.
I have certainly seen nothing that in my estimation touches LN3. I still feel bereft. (And would feel no scruples in giving anyone a copy.)

[mdevour]

Nobody needs to have any scruples about distributing any version of Libranet - it may well prove that this was the high point of linux.I have certainly seen nothing that in my estimation touches LN3. I still feel bereft. (And would feel no scruples in giving anyone a copy.)

I understand the feeling. However, if anyone attempted to do any development from the Libranet code base they'd run into a solid wall of scruples... if what I've seen of the Linux developer community is any indication.

This is a case where respect for software licensing becomes a suicide pact. :smiley13:

Mike D.

[coyotito]

Did LN3 come on DVD only or are there CD iso's?
(I would be interested in the CD version..)

[danieldk]

On physical media only on CD's, the download version was both available as CD ISOs and a DVD ISO.

[danieldk]

I understand the feeling. However, if anyone attempted to do any development from the Libranet code base they'd run into a solid wall of scruples... if what I've seen of the Linux developer community is any indication.

Libranet's own tools are proprietary copyrighted tools, so you can't just use the codebase or make it available to the public, unless you get permission from Tal. That's how it is, and that's why I prefer copylefted code any day.

(BTW. Keep in mind that Jon or Tal once stated that they are OK with making a copy for a friend.)

[coyotito]

Actually I found a torrent of LN 3 iso 1 today. That's all you need I suppose.
But I was behind a firewall so i couldn't test if it was possible to download the iso.

[danieldk]

Actually I found a torrent of LN 3 iso 1 today. That's all you need I suppose.
But I was behind a firewall so i couldn't test if it was possible to download the iso.

Only for a minimal install. If you use just one CD, the rest will be downloaded from the LN Archive, but this doesn't exist anymore.

[coyotito]

Only for a minimal install. If you use just one CD, the rest will be downloaded from the LN Archive, but this doesn't exist anymore.

I realize that, but I suppose it can be used with Debian Sarge?
I'm writing this on an AMD400 running LN 2.8.1 (which i bought) and some stuff from the Sarge CD's (I don't have broadband at the moment). Someone kindly sent me a LN3 DVD but it would not install on the two machines I tried it on. Anyway this is the best you can get for this aging machine - works very well, of course you have to be careful with apt-get.
Got an idea: maybe 2.8.1 can be upgraded with the LN3 DVD ..

[fos]

Give http://damnsmalllinux.org a try. It will run on a lot of older hardware.

fos...

[coyotito]

Yes, I've downloaded this but havent got it here
and it's NOT LIBRANET so..
LN 2.8.1 and 3.0 are still in the 'current distro' league as they are compatible with Debian Sarge. If only you can get hold of them. Unbelievable THAT should be a problem.

[danieldk]

To be honest, I'd look for something etch-based. There is only a limited time of security support for Sarge when Etch is released. And if you move, why not do it right? ;)

[coyotito]

Well, on a faster machine i go for Kanotix + Etch.
The GPRS connection tool actually worked..

[coyotito]

I looked at Damn Small Linux.
Compared to LN 2.8.1 it sucks (of course if it's really possible to run it on a 486 or an old Pentium that's pretty good).
Can DSL be used with Debian repositories or CDs?

[fos]

// can DSL be used with Debian repositories or cds?

Not very well. Remember DSL is an under 50Mb distro and it's big brother is under 80Mb. They have MyDSL extensions that can easily be downloaded and installed via a built in control console.

DSL has very low memory and resource requirements. I have found it nice to use as a rescue disk. It easily fits on a business card size cd.

fos....

[coyotito]

I need the repositories on CD --this excludes Mepis and Ubuntu etc
Etch seems to have been put off..

[uteck]

Just to add to the pool of knowledge here, I just found this article (http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linux-memory.html?ca=dgr-lnxw07LinuxMemory) that discusses memory footprints and how to reduce them. Nothing earth-shattering here, but a good read to begin to understand how memory is used.