Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel • Hacker News Board

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#21

Post by SillaDeRuedas » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #20

The virtue of reusing an old system is somewhat eroded by the fact that its noise and power consumption exceed that of a more powerful Pi 3 B+, which can be had for $50-60 with case and power supply (circa 2020). I see little advantage in keeping the old hardware around anymore. I think I still have some old ISA cables downstairs in a box - high time to acknowledge to myself that I will NEVER use those again.

But then you wouldn't show up in HN's frontpage doing something completely meaningless.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#22

Post by rpeden » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

SillaDeRuedas wrote: post #21

aksss wrote: post #20

The virtue of reusing an old system is somewhat eroded by the fact that its noise and power consumption exceed that of a more powerful Pi 3 B+, which can be had for $50-60 with case and power supply (circa 2020). I see little advantage in keeping the old hardware around anymore. I think I still have some old ISA cables downstairs in a box - high time to acknowledge to myself that I will NEVER use those again.

But then you wouldn't show up in HN's frontpage doing something completely meaningless.

Sometimes fun is the only meaning you need!

I think this is definitely in keeping with the hacker spirit and belongs on the front page for that reason alone.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#23

Post by znpy » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

back when i was 13, didn't have a computer i could mess with and internet at home, i remember unsuccessfully trying to boot coyote linux on an internet café computer from a floppy disk.

"floppydistro"s where a thing back in the day. the challenge was to fit a whole linux system along with some utilities in one or two floppy disks.

usually the first floppy disk was for core os + base utilities and the second floppy disk was for additional software.

oh the memories.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#24

Post by omnibrain » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #3

went to youtube to find a better video of the sound of the floppy drive, as the one in the posted video is very quiet. instead, came across this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c52JQHVVqFM

Or the floppy organ: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K46krINg8WA

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#25

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

I wonder how well it works. If you take an x86_64 system and make a memory control group with only 32MB of memory (and kmem tracking is enabled, which is true by default) the container will OOM right away. I've been operating under the belief that Linux now requires 64MB at a minimum, but perhaps a 32-bit uniprocessor build can get by with less.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#26

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

pgtan wrote: post #19

Modern days Linux kernel requires a bootloader, as seen in the video. In the old days, you could dd the kernel to the floppy disk and use rdev to point to the root partition to start after loading the kernel.

[deleted]

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#27

Post by znpy » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

drt1245 wrote: post #9

jschwartzi wrote: post #8

If you want to boot Debian on there you can actually build a complete Debian system from the package archives using either Debootstrap or Multistrap. Debootstrap is useful for building a Debian system inside of another Debian system, while Multistrap is useful for building a root filesystem to copy to another computer. If you can boot an initramfs then you can boot the root filesystem using pivot-root. The Linux kern…

Recent versions of Debian require a 686. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.en.html#...

also, this video features a 486 cpu because linux dropped 386 support a while ago.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/good-bye-386-linux-to-drop-sup...

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#28

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

znpy wrote: post #23

back when i was 13, didn't have a computer i could mess with and internet at home, i remember unsuccessfully trying to boot coyote linux on an internet café computer from a floppy disk. "floppydistro"s where a thing back in the day. the challenge was to fit a whole linux system along with some utilities in one or two floppy disks. usually the first floppy disk was for core os + base utilities and the second floppy di…

QNX used to distribute a floppy containing the entire OS and a web browser, for x86. http://toastytech.com/guis/qnxdemo.html

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#29

Post by reaperducer » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #20

The virtue of reusing an old system is somewhat eroded by the fact that its noise and power consumption exceed that of a more powerful Pi 3 B+, which can be had for $50-60 with case and power supply (circa 2020). I see little advantage in keeping the old hardware around anymore. I think I still have some old ISA cables downstairs in a box - high time to acknowledge to myself that I will NEVER use those again.

I guess it depends on if noise and power are your primary considerations.

For some, they'd rather not see a useful machine take up space in a landfill, leech toxins into the environment, and simultaneously drive unneeded demand for the production of yet another computer.

I guess one would have to do the math and figure out what the environmental impact of a new Pi 3 B+ is.

Or they could figure out if the increased electrical cost of running an old machine over x number of years is greater than the expense of purchasing and powering a new Pi 3 B+. Where I live, I could run a 486 for a heck of a long time on $60, especially when you factor in that the Pi still needs to be powered, too.

Re: Booting a 486 from floppy with the most up-to-date stable Linux kernel

#30

Post by cosmotic » Mon, Jul 06, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

aksss wrote: post #20

The virtue of reusing an old system is somewhat eroded by the fact that its noise and power consumption exceed that of a more powerful Pi 3 B+, which can be had for $50-60 with case and power supply (circa 2020). I see little advantage in keeping the old hardware around anymore. I think I still have some old ISA cables downstairs in a box - high time to acknowledge to myself that I will NEVER use those again.

AFAIK You can't hook up old ISA or PCI cards to a raspberry pi, and if you can, the x86 drivers and software won't work.