Friends,
Truth be told, I hear everyone talking about how
older boxes are good for firewalls,file, and print
servers etc. It makes me a little itchy that no one
ever says that these older boxes can also be used as
workstations. If you are frugal with the applications
you choose, and the window manager you use, then these
older boxes are quite useful.
As for current distros installing on these.. there
are some like Damn Small Linux that run an auto detect
script ( which is quite good) and install just fine on
an older HD. And the boot time is actually not bad.
I have an old 486 toshiba laptop that I use for
travel. I have debian Woody installed on it.. ( will
upgrade to Sarge as soon as I get around to remember
to take it to a coffee shop with broadband). I use it
for travel because its sturdy.. and I dont mind
running that through the airport security or those
associated headaches. One of the other issues this
laptop has is a longer boot time. Its boot time is
long because as a debian newbie I feared not having
enough drivers for all the things I thought I might
ever do with it.. and so I basically installed as many
drivers as I thought I would ever need. Resulting of
course in the extended boot times. If I were frugal
and removed some of those it would boot much faster.
The point is that one of the best things about linux
from an ecological / economical point of view is that
old stuff does not get tossed, and that you can get a
working system you can use cheaply for those who are
financially challenged.
Just a thought..
Mark
--- steve szmidt <steve@szmidt.org> wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 December 2005 08:00, SOTL wrote:
> > The issue is not GUI but drivers. Maybe you can
> not recall mode lines in
> > screen drivers. I can. And, my response to such is
> to spend the $50 to $100
> > required for more modern equipment than 486.
>
> The point was not to try to force anything on anyone
> but that you can do it
> fairly simply. New drivers does not mean the old
> ones are thrown away. Just
> that new ones are added. Certain distro's do compile
> for 586 and up, but it's
> not that hard to find one that isn't. Recompiling a
> kernel seems more
> daunting than it really is. Anyway, again my point
> was simply that if you
> have a 486 it can be put to use as a f/w.
> --
>
> Steve Szmidt
>
> "They that would give up essential liberty for
> temporary safety
> deserve neither liberty nor safety."
> Benjamin Franklin
>
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