Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Talk about other linux distributions, or even other OSes.
Adys
Posts: 156
Joined: 3. Apr 2012, 04:17

Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by Adys »

impatiens wrote: The other option I have is BasicLinux. It will definitely run on the system, and it might be easier for me, but the Linux kernel is older, and I can only install it if I either have some form of DOS or floppy disks, neither of which I have. And I've tried FreeDOS. The installer errors out.
Please forgive me for asking only now, after the topic was started several days ago already.

What kind of problem do you have with the kernel of BasicLinux? What I am asking is to clarify (the intention of) your statement. Do you "need" a newer kernel than the one in BasicLinux?

Which installer fails? The one from BasicLinux or from FreeDOS?
impatiens wrote: Just to clarify a bit about what I expect to do with this machine, it's mostly just IRC and light internet browsing.
So what you are looking for is an "old hardware" targeted distro (or even FreeDOS) with support for your PCMCIA. Have you tried installing any other distro (like some version of Puppy, or Antix, or Swift, or ...)?

IIRC, one of the thresholds of Slitaz 4.0 is set at 48MB of RAM, but I don't remember exactly if that was the absolute minimum, or the one above it.

I'm intrigued about what failed regarding FreeDOS (or maybe I misunderstood?).
impatiens
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Joined: 17. Jul 2012, 23:09

Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by impatiens »

I guess I don't really need a newer kernel, strictly speaking. The big problem with BasicLinux is I can only install it if I have either DOS or spare floppies. The laptop has a floppy drive, but no other system in my house does, and the external floppy drive I bought turned out to be defective. Also, the amount of spare floppies I have is diminishing. I do have a friend who has both older hardware and floppies I could beg for help, but he's on the other side of the country.

Yeah, it's FreeDOS that fails. It's been a while since I've done anything with the laptop, but I remember it fails while trying to install critical files. The checksum checked out, so it couldn't have been the ISO. It might've been the CDs, or it might be the hardware. I suppose the latter wouldn't be a surprise. The laptop's about 16 years old.

I haven't heard of Antix or Swift, but Puppy's too big. And I tried Slitaz in a virtual machine. The console version seems fine, but I wasn't too fond of the graphical loram version. Slitaz also seems to use sh rather than bash, so I'm not sure how well it would work with Shador's tool.
Adys
Posts: 156
Joined: 3. Apr 2012, 04:17

Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by Adys »

Thank you for taking the time to clarify it for me.

You should be able to install FreeDOS in such laptop. Which version have you tried (1.0 or 1.1)? Or did you try one of the several FreeDOS floppy images?

In fact, I don't think you really need the complete FreeDOS install. Assuming that the hardware is OK, you could use UBCD v.5.1.1 ( http://www.ultimatebootcd.com ) to :

fdisk -> new MBR -> new "FAT32" and "swap" partitions -> flag the FAT32 partition as "active/bootable" -> format the FAT32 partition -> "sys c:" -> add cd-rom and memory controllers.

Then you should be able to boot the HDD.
If there are DOS "drivers" for your PCMCIA, you could use FreeDOS itself (instead of installing Linux).

After booting to FreeDOS in your new FAT32 "C:" with the correct memory and cd-rom drivers, you could install BasicLinux.

About Slitaz, it is based on busybox (hence, there will be some differences). Since you have less than 48MB of RAM, you could try one of the other "flavors" like the slitaz-3.0-loram-cdrom.iso (still at version 3.0, not 4.0 ) from

Code: Select all

http://www.slitaz.org/en/get/flavors.php
where you may find more options; or build your own from

Code: Select all

http://tiny.slitaz.org/
.

There are still additional Linux alternatives for older hardware, including what gapan did :ugeek: , assuming your hardware works.
Adys
Posts: 156
Joined: 3. Apr 2012, 04:17

Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by Adys »

BTW, DSL is coming back to life, and probably the current latest ISO version could be useful for your case anyway.
trickyhero
Posts: 11
Joined: 29. Jul 2012, 22:14

Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by trickyhero »

Try connochaetos (http://www.connochaetos.org/wiki/connochaetos) or (http://delicate-linux.net/) both actually made for really old computers. Also tiny core (http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/) which is only 8mb core (barley anyting) 11mb tinycore (gui), or coreplus (wifi drivers, and extra windowmanagers.) I'v been trying to revitalize an old computer too, it had Win 98 on it, and has 32mb ram :)
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mimosa
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Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by mimosa »

http://kmandla.wordpress.com has lots of good tips for gtting the most out of really old hardware. The most recent post announces the retirement of the site, but it still has all its resources. I've found the tips for ultralight apps especially appealing.
GJones
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Re: Salix core on very old laptop - could it work?

Post by GJones »

Salix Xfce will actually run decently (with a full desktop) on a Pentium II or thereabouts, the main problem is sane settings for various things.

- Outline window resize is the single most important setting. Temporarily freezing the screen is a small price to pay, compared to the number of refreshes you'd be dealing with otherwise.

- Compositing managers may actually help a bit by further reducing refreshes, *if* you use outline resize. Opaque resize with compositing is often slow even on modern computers.

- Application choice is important, but less important than you'd think if you have enough RAM and enough patience. Sometimes things are counterintuitive, e.g. LibreOffice Writer works better than Abiword because Abiword uses smooth scrolling. OTOH, KDE applications (any of them!) will barely work at all, at least on Salix. The best browser is probably Opera or something webkit-based, e.g. Midori; note that Webkit-based browsers will be slow unless you disable certain shadow effects (see here and here.)

- Be careful with xorg.conf settings. Some older video cards and/or drivers are really finicky, and will crash your desktop with custom settings. Xorg autodetection is usually good enough. The exception is cards that prefer 16-bit color depth, since current Xorg versions usually default to 24 - that has to be changed in xorg.conf if you want reasonable desktop performance.

- Tuning swappiness down actually doesn't help that much. Depending on the computer, though, zram may make a big difference. For hard disk swap, you might want to use a file instead of a partition; that way you can resize it if needed. (The latter holds especially true for pre-ACPI machines, and others that can't hibernate.) Tuning swappiness up may actually be helpful, since it would let more RAM be used for filesystem cache, but I haven't tested it enough to be sure. Make sure you actually have enough swap, since you definitely will be swapping.

- I don't think the noatime mount option helps much, but it certainly doesn't hurt.

- Using writeback mode for ext3/4 might help performance, but risks appending garbage to edited files (instead of the data you saved!) if an unexpected shutdown occurs at an inopportune time.

- Things like drive IO queue length, drive readahead sectors, VFS cache pressure, and other obscure tweaks don't help (and probably hurt). In general, I find that the more obscure the tweak, the less likely it is to be helpful on old hardware.

- 2.6 kernels perform far better than 2.4 kernels. Not sure about 3.x kernels, I haven't gotten to try one on my Thinkpad yet. The BFS CPU scheduler may be helpful.

- Above all, don't expect miracles. A Pentium II will slow down perceptibly when rendering large web pages, installing updates, etc.; that doesn't mean it will be unusable. Expect it to be fairly slow, and you won't be put off when it performs poorly (and may be pleasantly surprised when it performs well).

Aaand that's pretty much all I've got for using Linux on old desktops. I really should bring out the Thinkpad again, when I have the time...
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