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Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

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Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#91

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

fogihujy wrote: post #39
anthk wrote: post #6

Slackware or NetBSD would run perfectly. For Slackware, enable ZRAM: wget -O /etc/rc.d/rc.zram https://raw.githubusercontent.com/otzy007/enable-zRam-in-Slackware/master/etc/rc.d/rc.zram sed -i 's,1024,512,g' /etc/rc.d/rc.zram chmod +x /etc/rc.d/rc.zram echo '/etc/rc.d/rc.zram start' >> /etc/rc.d/rc.local Easy GUI on Slackware: You won't need Plasma or XFCE. For sure. Deselect them, as lightweight apps are more than e…

+1 for IceWM. It's ridiculously fast and lightweight while retaining a bare minimum of what it needs to be usable. I rarely touch computers as old as the one in the original blog post, but a simple Debian/IceWM setup will fly on things like netbooks with 1 GB RAM. I suggest MOC as an alternative music player and mpv for videos.

Can't get used to IceWM on multi-screen setups. Fluxbox works better with those(for me), especially different screen sizes and resolutions. Regarding media players, why use anything else besides mpv at all? Doesn't matter if started manually with some playlist, or out of some filemanager, regardless if from (framebuffer)console, some X-terminal emulator, or X itself. Works, anytime, for anything.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#92

Post by oliwarner »

Entitled.

They want somebody to write, test and maintain a distribution that works without bugs and easy enough for newbies, on an almost bottomless pit of historical hardware.

You can have this. It's easy. Just hire a developer or two. Oh, you want it for free too?!

You don't have to argue with the many technical issues in the post, the author doesn't deserve the oxygen.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#93

Post by avodonosov »

rangibaby wrote: post #26

What’s wrong with installing WinXP+office and calling it a day? Even if someone fulfilled your request and got an up-to-date browser etc working on your 256MB laptop Would YouTube even work?

I have an old laptop running XP, and I hoped to improve it by installing Linux. It got much slower. So yes, XP is a good candidate, IMHO.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#94

Post by fogihujy »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #91
fogihujy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 for IceWM. It's ridiculously fast and lightweight while retaining a bare minimum of what it needs to be usable. I rarely touch computers as old as the one in the original blog post, but a simple Debian/IceWM setup will fly on things like netbooks with 1 GB RAM. I suggest MOC as an alternative music player and mpv for videos.

Can't get used to IceWM on multi-screen setups. Fluxbox works better with those(for me), especially different screen sizes and resolutions. Regarding media players, why use anything else besides mpv at all? Doesn't matter if started manually with some playlist, or out of some filemanager, regardless if from (framebuffer)console, some X-terminal emulator, or X itself. Works, anytime, for anything.

I didn't consider multi-screen setups for such old things as net books. But yes, Fluxbox is also very nice for older systems.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#95

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

fogihujy wrote: post #94
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't get used to IceWM on multi-screen setups. Fluxbox works better with those(for me), especially different screen sizes and resolutions. Regarding media players, why use anything else besides mpv at all? Doesn't matter if started manually with some playlist, or out of some filemanager, regardless if from (framebuffer)console, some X-terminal emulator, or X itself. Works, anytime, for anything.

I didn't consider multi-screen setups for such old things as net books. But yes, Fluxbox is also very nice for older systems.

Why not? They have at least one external VGA, which you can use to drive at least some 14 to 17" external panel at stunning 1024x768 to 1280x1024!1!!

Or not so old ones with HDMI/DP easily anything 22 to 24" @1920x1200, as I do.

edit: more screen real estate is always good!

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#96

Post by simonblack »

Most modern distros are 'kitchen sink' distros in that they cater for the majority of cases. And in doing that, they work very well.

However, they don't cater for every situation, every computer that exists. So somebody will be needed to cater for those few cases that aren't covered by mainstream distros.

Now, that somebody has to have good knowledge of Linux and be able to recompile/rewrite whatever is needed for that idiosyncratic distro that works for that particular edge case.

If a few people insist on using an uncommon computer, they have to take on the responsibility of keeping mainstream Gnu Linux working on those particular computers. Or else be satisfied with the older versions of Gnu Linux that were working previously on those computers.

ASIDE: I like making emulators of old 8-bit computers. But I don't try to make those old computers use modern software, they use the CP/M software that was extant at the time those 8-bit computers were made.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#97

Post by anthk »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #90
anthk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has software a bit newer than Damn Small Linux: http://delicate-linux.net/ Try compiling a modern TLS under /opt, compile and link a new mbedtls library, and try compiling Dillo from Mercurial. Edit ~/.dillo/dillorc in order to set the User Agent to either PSP or Opera Mini 3. Or better, Lynx. The Lynx one. Web pages got lovely formatted where supported: http_user_agent="Lynx/2.8.9rel.1 libwww-FM/2.14 SSL-MM/1.4…

Hm. Interesting site, but reading the recommended configuration I'm wondering what they mean by m68060@100Mhz? FPGA, one of the maybe few 100s turbocards worldwide, or what? :-)

They had some release for m68k machines I think.

On Delicate Linux, once you get libressl at /opt and try to configure mbedtls to read "libressl" before SSL, Dillo would have a modern crypto stack and it would be really good for old machines.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#98

Post by mschuster91 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #63
mschuster91 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem: once something is removed from the tree, it is almost impossible to get it back in, since whoever wants to do that has to replay the extreme amounts of refactorings done since the removal. The Linux kernel famously only guarantees outside stability of interfaces, but in-kernel interfaces are regularly changed - one might suspect intentionally , to make the lives of people doing off-kernel work (such as g…

How’s that any different than keeping it updated while it’s in the tree? If it’s stale and someone comes along to fix it, it’ll be in the same state it was when it would’ve been removed. Stale code needs to be updated regardless of where it came from.

Code that is in the tree will get picked up by everyone who does a refactoring of an internal interface.

Code that is outside of the tree will need someone who goes through all of the refactorings manually.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#99

Post by Tepix »

anilakar wrote: post #37
Tepix wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's looking for operating systems that are up-to-date. A currently supported Windows will not run on a 20 year old computer with 256MB of RAM.

But what will run on that Windows even if you could install it on one? Yes, I'm intentionally begging the question here.

You could run old software on it of course.

Re: Linux Has Largely Abandoned Still-Useful Near-Vintage Computers

#100

Post by TLM275 »

c22 wrote: post #31

So the author complains that there are linuxes that run on vintage hardware, but they're not usable by novice linux users . The problem, I guess, is that linux on vintage hardware is too inaccessible to people coming from windows, but all the accessible distros are bloated from too much "Microsoft disease?" Perhaps the features you want are a byproduct of this "disease" then? If you don't want bloated software you ma…

I just tried booting my Dell Inspiron 5100 from a Sparkylinux USB stick, and it had a kernel panic. How were you able to install it?
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