Re: Ancient History

Message-ID	<6a8f6fbe@news.ausics.net> (permalink)
From	not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev)
Subject	Re: Ancient History
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.misc
References	<nf4koiF5rktU44@mid.individual.net>
Date	2026-08-27 08:59 +1000
Organization	Ausics - https://newsgroups.ausics.net

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rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> In my OCD quest to rejuvenate old machines I finally dug out the tower 
> buried under other junk out in the shed. Turns out it's a Compaq Presario 
> 4550. It has a 233 MHz AMD K6 that was AMDs challenge to the Pentium II. 
> It was pin compatible and could be used in a Socket 7 board. It has 48 MB 
> of RAM (no, that's not a typo) and a 4 GB HDD. For your computing 
> convenient, it has a 56K modem. There are 2 USB ports although I think it 
> expects the mouse and keyboard to be plugged into the PS2 ports.

Very modern compared to the 120MHz Pentium 1 I'm posting this from,
running old Linux.

> Two distros that claim to run in 48 MB are Tiny Core and Slax. slax 
> specifies text only unless you have more RAM. Tiny Core isn't very 
> specific.

For current Tiny Core I don't think their standard boot to RAM
method will fit in 48MB anymore, but if you do a manual "HDD
install" it will boot with 20MB RAM, and then their default Xvesa
TinyX server will probably work in 48MB.

> Now for the real puzzle. I was a fairly decent machine in 1997 and came 
> with Windows 95. Windows 95 claimed a minimum of 4 MB, recommended 8 MB, 
> and if you had 16 MB or more didn't bother creating a swap file. What the 
> flaming hell has happened to us?  Even by Windows 98 24 MB was 
> recommended. Now you can barely run a pared down Linux in 48 MB and I 
> doubt it's a very appealing UX.

Some bloat is from the drivers. OpenWRT separately packages a lot of
modules for things that are built into the kernel in other distro's
kernel builds. Since the total size of the kernel is subtracted
from the RAM that's left available for everything else, that allows
booting in less RAM. But even the size of that minimum kernel has
grown rapidly in recent years such that they no longer officially
support routers with 32MB RAM.

Otherwise it's software choice. I wonder if the "UX" I choose for
all my Linux systems regardless of performance isn't appealing to
you since it's largely the same set of software that my Pentium 1
can run. However in some cases where I've had to find alternatives
due to incompatibility with modern Linux/libraries maybe the
"appealing UX" is why I classed them all as useless? Each to his
own...

-- 
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#_ < |\| |< _#

Thread

Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 04:41 +0000
  Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-25 03:15 -0400
    Re: Ancient History John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2026-08-25 08:19 -0700
      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 19:57 +0100
        Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 04:25 -0400
          Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 09:33 +0100
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:20 +0000
            Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 21:27 +0100
              Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 01:13 +0000
                Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:24 -0400
  Re: Ancient History "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:41 +0200
    Re: Ancient History Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:53 +0100
      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:54 +0100
        Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:25 +0000
      Re: Ancient History "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> - 2026-08-25 14:23 +0200
        Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 03:28 -0400
          Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 09:12 +0100
            Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:26 +0000
              Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:56 -0400
                Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-27 12:00 +0100
          Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 18:23 +0000
            Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-26 21:29 +0100
    Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:31 +0100
      Re: Ancient History Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> - 2026-08-25 07:53 -0400
      Re: Ancient History Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-08-25 18:26 +0000
        Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:37 +0000
    Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-25 19:16 +0000
      Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 20:21 +0100
        Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-26 04:40 +0000
  Re: Ancient History The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-08-25 12:30 +0100
    Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-26 02:49 -0400
  Re: Ancient History "Mr. Chang Man-wai" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2026-08-25 20:07 +0800
  Re: Ancient History Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2026-08-25 11:20 -0400
    Re: Ancient History Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net> - 2026-08-25 17:44 +0000
    Re: Ancient History Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-08-25 21:55 +0000
  Re: Ancient History not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) - 2026-08-27 08:59 +1000
    Re: Ancient History rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2026-08-27 01:20 +0000
      Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:38 -0400
        Re: Ancient History vallor <vallor@vallor.earth> - 2026-08-27 08:08 +0000
    Re: Ancient History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-08-27 03:21 -0400

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