Uncreative Labs

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Hi

I've just installed Linux on my 486:

http://tinyurl.com/3cumvr
http://tinyurl.com/2h64u2
http://tinyurl.com/2jgofh

It's a Presario CDS 524 with 64megs of ram, 2.4gig hard drive and NE2000 compatible nic. I was quite surprised it took so much ram and didn't need overlay software for hard drive.

It came with Dos/win3.1 installed but I wanted to push it to its limits Wink

.
The first distro I tried was Red Hat 6.0 but have settled on Mandrake 6.1. Its ment to be loaded on Pentium class processors according to all the reveiws/docs I've come across. It has far more applications on the cds as well.

KDE and Gnome load up slow, but WindowMaker and the Gtk apps seem to run acceptably. Enlightenment certainly is an eye opener.

Anyone done something similar?

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

A long time ago I ran Redhat Linux 5.2 on a 486 system with 32MB and a 133MHz 486 (am5x86). I believe I was running gnome at that time. It wasn't really fast, but definetly usable.
A while later I installed Redhat Linux 6.1 onto my IBM Stinkpad 750 with 33MHz 486DX and 20MB of RAM. I tried WindowMaker, and it was slow but usable. KDE and Gnome were pretty much useless. Though, I only really intended to use the console anyway.
These days I figure it's not really worth the time. I can't really think of any linux software that makes the 486 memorable. Though, I have to admit it sounds like an interesting experiment.

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Interesting alright. WindowMaker was fashioned after NEXTSTEP I believe. I do like the simplicity of it. Also like the idea of seperate desktops for different functions. I've got a P200mmx running RH 7.3 as a back server for the home network, so have a bit of a grounding in linux. Albeit just scatching the surface.

I've got a few old PCs. All pentium class apart from the little Compaq. Other folks cast offs you know Wink

Did have a 286 for a long time with DRDos 6 and Geoworks Ensemble installed. But that died in storage. Also have a varying selection of OSs and software. All x86 stuff- OS/2, Dos, win3.x/9x/NT3.x/4 and a few Linux flavours.

Forgotten I had the Compaq untill I was doing a bit of spring cleaning in the garage. Booted up no problems and even showed the correct date. So decided it deserved a bit of attention.

Joined: 20 Nov 2004 Posts: 589 Location: Shandong, China

I've been meaning to install DR DOS for some time now. I heard it works pretty well on 8088 and 80286 systems. I really want to test out the "multitasking" with this LIM 4.0 board in my XT. ELKS would be pretty interesting too, but I wish it had expanded memory support.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

What UNIX software was there for 486 systems?

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Unknown_K wrote:

What UNIX software was there for 486 systems?

A lot of the GNU tools/software that run on Linux can be recomiled, so there is a huge list. Most were there before Linus came up with the Linux kernal. As for OSs - System V, SCO UNIX, XENIX, BSD varients and many others.

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/clone-unix-guide.txt

http://www.networkcomputing.com/614/614unix.html

Joined: 19 Oct 2004 Posts: 138 Location: Lynnwood,WA

Actually, eariler versions of linux run well with a Desktop on a 486, one of those desktop/window managers being FVWM. I have a CD called "Slackware 96'" with FVWM 95' on it, which mimicks the look of Windows 95, and runs really fast on an 80486.

Joined: 22 Apr 2007 Posts: 264 Location: Ohio/USA

My oldest Linux is a boxed redhat 5.0, wonder how well that would run on a 486?

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 594 Location: Western NC

I had it (Redhat 5.2) on a 486/33 and it was "tolerable". Just be cautious about what you install; most 486's have less than a 1GB HDD, and anything including or over a "workstation" install would likely run out of space before completion...

Installation time is also a factor (i.e.---be very patient), and graphics drivers may (or may not) be an issue...

Some more-current (but still lean and usable) distros can be found here: Damn Small Linux, Decendants

I've got DSL 3.4 on a "discarded" AMDK6-200 machine and it flies... Very Happy

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Mandrake 6.1 is running fine on the Presario. It's got a 2.4gig hdd installed and 64megs of ram as mentioned earlier. Been VNCing my Win98 box and back. Danm cool peice of software.

My first "Install everything" installed about 1.4gigs of stuff. Basicly just let it do its thing, took around 1hr or more. I did a selective install last night and that cut the installation down to around 500megs and took around 40 minutes.

Ok it's not as quick as the Dos/win3.x that was on it , but then again dos/win doesn't do half the stuff thats installed on it now;). Setting up the networking was a breeze.

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Put the screen shot on another provider because photobucket sucks:

http://imgur.com/a/bjTBS

Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2016 3:14 am

How's it working for you? Is it usable?

I have Linux Mint on the 900 mHz PowerPC iBook, and it sometimes takes forever to respond... even running one program at a time.

Joined: 03 Jan 2008 Posts: 8

Yes it was usable.

Joined: 28 Feb 2006 Posts: 127 Location: LI, NY

Oldest desktop I ever had running Linux was a P2 233Mhz with 32MB of RAM. I remember running Debian and Slackware on it in the early 2000s. Ran pretty nicely as long as I used a different WM than KDE. I used to use PWM as my WM. It was lightweight and had nice keyboard shortcuts.

I remember doing some OpenGL C++ tutorials on that box. Puck, I'm not sure why your iBook would be running so slow. You're not using a new version of Mint right? (I feel like that would be resource intensive)