On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 12:03:16 +0100, Paul wrote:
> edward hage wrote:
>> Recently in installed Slackware 9.0 on an old 486DX2 - machine. I did
> Stop! I can find higher spec PCs in a skip (dumpster?)

True, but that's not as fun :P

--
Dylan Lainhart
Endwell, NY

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 08:02:26 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

> [ ... ] I guess there is something to be said for a precompiled kernel
> that doesn't have to jump through hoops to accommodate the older
> processors. :-)

Yeah, i agree. Kewl thing being: they are archived at lots of ftp sites
across the web. And even the 2.0.x kernel series is still being maintained.
(Plus writing LKM for that is well documented.)

Only thing, i see why anyone would want to upgrade are: securety issues,
features (stability might be another one, but five year old programs tend
to be as reliable/unreliable as newer ones, but they lack the new feature)
or just versionitis (but people with a major infection of that, probably
use something like Gentoo instead. :-))

--
-Menno.

In article <pan.2004.04.15.09.08.41.304180@desktop.lan>, Menno Duursma wrote:
> across the web. And even the 2.0.x kernel series is still being maintained.
I think it might be time for me to dust off my Slackware 3.9
system again put it on my Acernote 350c laptop. It only has 8MB of ram
and while I did have Slackware 8.0 on it.. Its original 540MB 2.5"
drive was too tight to do much useful work. I put the original drive
in an old IBM "Stinkpad" that has more problems than I want to even
try to solve heres a small snip of them.
1. No docking station
2. No floppy drive!
3. NO Cdrom drive or a Cardbus cdrom drive
4. only 8MB of ram
5. Battery charging circuit won't charge anymore meaning its
desk bound.
6. Screen Sucks
7. Hate that little pointy stick thingy.
8. No IRDA!

Acernote 350c is quite the opposite in many ways such as
1. Has a floppy drive
2. Has IRDA
3. only 8MB of ram
4. Battery charger fine but old LI-Hydride battery is failing
5. Screen is better than the thinkpad
7. uses a trackpad.

I like the acernote as its grey and it has one legacy 16bit
PCMCIA slot. It also has a 1GB hard drive now, good candidate for
Slackware 3.9 or even back to 8.0 if I can bear to download at 38400
using telix all of the packages. or the zipslack disk image.

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B'ichela

B'ichela <mdalene@pinkrose.net.dhis.org> wrote:
> I think it might be time for me to dust off my Slackware 3.9
> system again put it on my Acernote 350c laptop. It only has 8MB of ram
> and while I did have Slackware 8.0 on it.. Its original 540MB 2.5"
> drive was too tight to do much useful work. I put the original drive

I'm running (mostly) SW 4.0 on small machines like that, but I think 7.1
will even work there (you probably will need a 2.2 kernel, though).
--
************************************************** ******************
** Eef Hartman, Delft University of Technology, dept. EWI/TW **
** e-mail: E.J.M.Hartman@math.tudelft.nl, fax: +31-15-278 7295 **
** snail-mail: P.O. Box 5031, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands **
************************************************** ******************

In article <c5o720$or0$2@news.tudelft.nl>, Eef Hartman wrote:
>> and while I did have Slackware 8.0 on it.. Its original 540MB 2.5"
>> drive was too tight to do much useful work. I put the original drive
>
> I'm running (mostly) SW 4.0 on small machines like that, but I think 7.1
> will even work there (you probably will need a 2.2 kernel, though).
Well, as I said I had 8.0 working fine with the 2.2.20 kernal
(all of my boxen use the 2.2.20 series with Slackware 8.0). But
compiling would have been PAINFUL! Since I only used it with the
laptops IRDA to work with my Nokia 6340i cellular to call my dialup
bbs line for shell access using minicom it worked ok.
If one did not need the use of IRDA one could go with the
slackware 2.0 kernal tree. Since My cellular service is getting the
big snip (I couldn't afford it anymore.) using Slackware 3.9 would not
be a hurdle. Unlike my "Stinkpad" it has a floppy drive and I could do
the floppy install method to get the A and N series up enough to run
minicom and a null modem cable to the big box to get the other
package sets.
If I were to use the legacy 16bit Pcmcia slot (its a type I/II
slot) the only thing I see I can use on it would be the one JDR
Microdevices 10base-2/t Pcmcia card (My lan is 10base-2 (coax)). Not
sure if I can even use a usb card on it (another use for a 2.2.20
kernal tree, I am just not sure whats cardbus vs Pcmcia these days,
not sure what keywords to look for other than CARDBUS (only the
"stinkpad supports those" I see terms like pccard or card but not sure
if its older pcmcia or cardbus. Unlike PCI vs ISA which is clearly
physically different beasties, the two look identical.)

--
From the Desk of the Sysop of:
Planet Maca's Opus, a Free open BBS system.
Telephone 860-738-7176 300-33.6kbps Telnet://pinkrose.net.dhis.org
The New Cnews maintainer
B'ichela

Eef Hartman (E.J.M.Hartman@math.tudelft.nl) writes:
> B'ichela <mdalene@pinkrose.net.dhis.org> wrote:
>> I think it might be time for me to dust off my Slackware 3.9
>> system again put it on my Acernote 350c laptop. It only has 8MB of ram
>> and while I did have Slackware 8.0 on it.. Its original 540MB 2.5"
>> drive was too tight to do much useful work. I put the original drive
>
> I'm running (mostly) SW 4.0 on small machines like that, but I think 7.1
> will even work there (you probably will need a 2.2 kernel, though).

I used Slackware 7.0 briefly on a 486 with 10megs of RAM and a 240meg
hard drive. It started with 8megs of RAM, and I couldn't boot it to
do the install. It was an "SLC" so I could throw in two 1meg SIMMs
and get 10megs that worked. It was basically my first experience with
Linux, and I suspect with more experience I could have gotten it wo
work with the 8megs.

It worked fine for what I could use it for. The small hard drive
was the immediate limitation, because I wanted to play with things,
but had no space for them. It was hard to decide things like which
editor to use when I couldn't throw them all on and try them.

I barely used that, because of that lack of hard drive space. I suppose
I might have found the low RAM a limitation with use, though my main
computer at the time had only 4megs (and a 40meg hard drive).

I don't think I'd bother with such systems now, unless I had a dedicated
task (or a working laptop cheap). It is too easy to find better systems.
I paid $150 for a 200MHz Pentium with 32megs of RAM and a 2gig hard drive
in mid-2001, specificlaly to run Linux, and last spring found a pretty
much identical system in the garbage. I've found partial Pentiums there
also, and I expect with the warm weather the spring harvest will offer
up a few systems of that level or better.

Michael

Michael Black <et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> says...

>I used Slackware 7.0 briefly on a 486 with 10megs of RAM and a 240meg
>hard drive. It started with 8megs of RAM, and I couldn't boot it to
>do the install. It was an "SLC" so I could throw in two 1meg SIMMs
>and get 10megs that worked.

Althought there is a technique that allows one to install Slackware
7.x on an 8MB PC, it's better to install BasicLinux (not to be confused
with "Basic Linux" - note that BasicLinux is one word), which is a subset
of Slackware 7.1 that installs and runs on a 386 with 4mb RAM and fits
on any HD, CD-ROM or Floppy. You can then install any packages from
Slackware 7.1. (There is also an older version of BasicLinux that is
based on Slackware 3.5)

See:
http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/oldpc/
http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/

--
Guy Macon, Electronics Engineer & Project Manager for hire.
Remember Doc Brown from the _Back to the Future_ movies? Do you
have an "impossible" engineering project that only someone like
Doc Brown can solve? My resume is at http://www.guymacon.com/

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 09:51:05 +0000, B'ichela wrote:

> If I were to use the legacy 16bit Pcmcia slot (its a type I/II
> slot) the only thing I see I can use on it would be the one JDR
> Microdevices 10base-2/t Pcmcia card (My lan is 10base-2 (coax)).

Alternatively, there are converters for 10Base-2 <-> 10/100Base-T.
Some cheap'o (UTP) Hubs i have seen have one BNC connector also.

> Not sure if I can even use a usb card on it (another use for a 2.2.20
> kernal tree,

Maybe. The one i looked at (a while ago) was 32bit cartbus though. And it
was the only one available at the local PC hardware shop.

> I am just not sure whats cardbus vs Pcmcia these days,

A PCMCIA cart works in a Cardbus sloth, but not the other way around.
The difference being the sleave on one side is U shaped on a Cardbus card.
Whereas, the same side is L shaped if it's a PCMCIA card.

CMIIW of cource.

> not sure what keywords to look for other than CARDBUS (only the
> "stinkpad supports those" I see terms like pccard or card but not sure
> if its older pcmcia or cardbus.

I'd think 10 to 1, it's the latter :-(.

> Unlike PCI vs ISA which is clearly physically different beasties,

Moreover, they have just those names ( either (E)ISA or PCI(-X) ). Not a
whole damn dictionary of confusing / unclear terms.

> the two look identical.)

I am pretty sure a 32bit CardBus card has the U slide on both sides.
And 16bit PCMCIA, PC-Card, CreditCard has an L slide on the left instead.

HTH.

--
-Menno.