On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 20:28:03 +0000, Doctor John wrote:

> Warp wrote:
>> Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
>>> In amongst the detritus I found a Toshiba T-1850 laptop.
>> 
>>   It seems to be a 386, so linux should install just fine. Even X might
>> work with some light window manager (avoid KDE and Gnome). Likewise
>> POV-Ray should compile and might even run without running out of
>> memory. It will be slow like h***, but I don't think DKB-trace would be
>> any faster either. :P
>> 
> 25 MHz 386SX, 4MB RAM, 60 MB Disk, 9.5" Mono screen :-)
> 
> You're probably right about going the linux route but which kernel? I
> know for certain that it won't run 2.6.22 :-))

I'd probably go with a 2.0 or a 2.2 kernel - something like DSL or one of 
the other minimalist Linux distros should come with one of those older 
kernels.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Hey, John - good to hear from you again!
> 
> Jim
Thanks for the welcome :-))

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> You're probably right about going the linux route but which kernel? I
> know for certain that it won't run 2.6.22 :-))

  How do you know that?

  The linux kernel developers have somewhat of a friendly competition with
the NetBSD developers about who supports the most platforms. (NetBSD
supports over 54 hardware platforms, comprising around 17 different
processor architectures. The Linux 2.6 kernel supports even more than
this, although any single Linux distro supports less.)

  I would be surprised if the Linux 2.6 kernel wouldn't support old 386's.
(Just because the kernel can use features of newer processors doesn't
necessarily mean it cannot be compiled for older ones.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> > You're probably right about going the linux route but which kernel? I
> > know for certain that it won't run 2.6.22 :-))

> I'd probably go with a 2.0 or a 2.2 kernel - something like DSL or one of 
> the other minimalist Linux distros should come with one of those older 
> kernels.

  Does anyone actually have a reference to 2.6 not supporting 386?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 16:06:39 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> > You're probably right about going the linux route but which kernel? I
>> > know for certain that it won't run 2.6.22 :-))
> 
>> I'd probably go with a 2.0 or a 2.2 kernel - something like DSL or one
>> of the other minimalist Linux distros should come with one of those
>> older kernels.
> 
>   Does anyone actually have a reference to 2.6 not supporting 386?

I don't, and I'm sure it does work, but the memory requirements are 
typically higher for the newer kernels, so an older kernel is often 
preferred.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I don't, and I'm sure it does work, but the memory requirements are 
> typically higher for the newer kernels, so an older kernel is often 
> preferred.

  I believe that the memory requirements for new kernels are higher
only if you compile *everything* into it. Being a monolithic kernel,
it has tons and tons and tons of device drivers, and each version of
the kernel has more and more of them.

  However, I think it's possible to compile the kernel so that it's
optimized for the target platform, with everything unneeded removed.
This reduces the size of the kernel considerably because unneeded drivers
are not included.

  After all, 2.6 has been used for embedded systems.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Doctor John <doc### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> > In amongst the detritus I found a Toshiba T-1850 laptop.

>   It seems to be a 386, so linux should install just fine.

  What you can try is to take a live linux distro which fits in a floppy
disk and try booting with that. That way you can test how it works.
Something like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Linux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEAF_Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fli4l
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I don't, and I'm sure it does work, but the memory requirements are 
>> typically higher for the newer kernels, so an older kernel is often 
>> preferred.
<snip> ...
>   However, I think it's possible to compile the kernel so that it's
> optimized for the target platform, with everything unneeded removed.
> This reduces the size of the kernel considerably because unneeded drivers
> are not included.
> 
>   After all, 2.6 has been used for embedded systems.
> 
Thinking about it you're probably right. I'm making a start on the job
tomorrow evening. Can't do it this p.m. due to 6 Nations and tomorrow
afternoon there's a rather important match between Chelsea and some
obscure team from North London :-) (In case you haven't guessed I'm a
Chelsea supporter)
Of course when we win I'll be in no fit state to do anything remotely
techy so Monday evening then.

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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Warp wrote:
> Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
<snip> ...
>   What you can try is to take a live linux distro which fits in a floppy
> disk and try booting with that. That way you can test how it works.
> Something like:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_Linux
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEAF_Project
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fli4l
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomsrtbt
> 
Thanks for those links

John

-- 
I will be brief but not nearly so brief as Salvador Dali, who gave the
world's shortest speech. He said, "I will be so brief I am already
finished," then he sat down.

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On Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:40:28 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I don't, and I'm sure it does work, but the memory requirements are
>> typically higher for the newer kernels, so an older kernel is often
>> preferred.
> 
>   I believe that the memory requirements for new kernels are higher
> only if you compile *everything* into it. Being a monolithic kernel, it
> has tons and tons and tons of device drivers, and each version of the
> kernel has more and more of them.
> 
>   However, I think it's possible to compile the kernel so that it's
> optimized for the target platform, with everything unneeded removed.
> This reduces the size of the kernel considerably because unneeded
> drivers are not included.
> 
>   After all, 2.6 has been used for embedded systems.

True, I'm just remembering that the low memory footprint stuff typically 
has used older kernels.

Jim

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