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Re: Very old hardware...

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  Re: Very old hardware... Georgi Naplatanov <gosho@oles.biz> - 2020-07-03 20:50 +0200
    Re: Very old hardware... Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-07-06 13:50 +0200
      Re: Very old hardware... David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-07-06 17:20 +0200
        Re: Very old hardware... <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-07-06 17:40 +0200
          Re: Very old hardware... Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-07-06 17:40 +0200
            Re: Very old hardware... <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-07-06 17:50 +0200
              Re: Very old hardware... Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2020-07-06 18:00 +0200
                Re: Very old hardware... deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2020-07-06 19:20 +0200
                  Re: Very old hardware... Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2020-07-06 23:50 +0200
                    Re: Very old hardware... Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-07-07 20:20 +0200
                      Re: Very old hardware... davidson <davidson@freevolt.org> - 2020-07-08 02:40 +0200
                        Re: Very old hardware... davidson <davidson@freevolt.org> - 2020-07-08 03:20 +0200
              Re: Very old hardware... Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2020-07-06 18:00 +0200

#224327 — Re: Very old hardware...

On 7/3/20 8:17 PM, Davide Lombardo wrote:
> Good evening Debian User, I have found an old PC with these specs:
> CPU: Pentium III 700 Mhz;
> DRAM: 64 MB SDDR 
> GPU: RIVA TNT-2
> HARDISK: 10 GB
> FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
> MODEM 56K
> In the receipt is written 3,000 Lire (1,500) Euro of today...
> Do you think I can install something different than the already installed 
> WIN98 system ?

Hi,

I'm not sure what is minimum RAM requirement for Debian Linux kernel but
I think that for desktop environment you'll need 1GB RAM at least.

Kind regards
Georgi

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#224432

On Fri, Jul 03, 2020 at 09:34:25PM +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:
> On 7/3/20 8:17 PM, Davide Lombardo wrote:
> > Good evening Debian User, I have found an old PC with these specs:
> > CPU: Pentium III 700 Mhz;
> > DRAM: 64 MB SDDR 

> I'm not sure what is minimum RAM requirement for Debian Linux kernel but
> I think that for desktop environment you'll need 1GB RAM at least.

This machine fails to meet the minimum spec for current Debian versions.
You *might* be able to get it to boot with 64 MB of RAM, if you can
somehow manage to get Debian installed at all, but there are no
guarantees that even booting will work.  As soon as you try to run any
applications or services, you'll almost certainly be thrashing swap.  And
that's *without* X11.

The latest version of Debian that supports installing and booting with
only 64 MB of RAM is wheezy (Debian 7), which is way beyond its end
of life.

If the OP could double the amount of RAM somehow, then it might be able
to run as some sort of minimal server (perhaps a static content web
server), but even then, it wouldn't be worth the time and (literal)
energy it would take.  They could buy modern low-energy-consumption
hardware that would be immensely more powerful, and not very expensive.

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#224442

On Mon 06 Jul 2020 at 07:45:33 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 03, 2020 at 09:34:25PM +0300, Georgi Naplatanov wrote:
> > On 7/3/20 8:17 PM, Davide Lombardo wrote:
> > > Good evening Debian User, I have found an old PC with these specs:
> > > CPU: Pentium III 700 Mhz;
> > > DRAM: 64 MB SDDR 
> 
> > I'm not sure what is minimum RAM requirement for Debian Linux kernel but
> > I think that for desktop environment you'll need 1GB RAM at least.
> 
> This machine fails to meet the minimum spec for current Debian versions.
> You *might* be able to get it to boot with 64 MB of RAM, if you can
> somehow manage to get Debian installed at all, but there are no
> guarantees that even booting will work.  As soon as you try to run any
> applications or services, you'll almost certainly be thrashing swap.  And
> that's *without* X11.
> 
> The latest version of Debian that supports installing and booting with
> only 64 MB of RAM is wheezy (Debian 7), which is way beyond its end
> of life.

One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.
The snag with systemd is that booting is massively parallel,
just what you don't want.

> If the OP could double the amount of RAM somehow, then it might be able
> to run as some sort of minimal server (perhaps a static content web
> server), but even then, it wouldn't be worth the time and (literal)
> energy it would take.  They could buy modern low-energy-consumption
> hardware that would be immensely more powerful, and not very expensive.

Cheers,
David.

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#224443

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 10:13:14AM -0500, David Wright wrote:

[...]

> One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.

Buster runs fine without systemd.

Cheers
-- t

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#224444

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 05:34:25PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 10:13:14AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> > One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.
> 
> Buster runs fine without systemd.

But probably not in 64 MB.

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#224445

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 11:37:28AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 05:34:25PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 10:13:14AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > 
> > [...]
> > 
> > > One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.
> > 
> > Buster runs fine without systemd.
> 
> But probably not in 64 MB.

Most probably not. My (fairly minimal) system makes about 500M. Half
of it is Firefox. One third of the rest is Emacs (with a fairly fat
file loaded, mind you). But still X and PostfreSQL and...

Cheers
-- t

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#224446

tomas@tuxteam.de wrote: 
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 11:37:28AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 05:34:25PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 10:13:14AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > > 
> > > [...]
> > > 
> > > > One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.
> > > 
> > > Buster runs fine without systemd.
> > 
> > But probably not in 64 MB.
> 
> Most probably not. My (fairly minimal) system makes about 500M. Half
> of it is Firefox. One third of the rest is Emacs (with a fairly fat
> file loaded, mind you). But still X and PostfreSQL and...

I can point to several VMs that are running useful things on
buster in just over 256MB of RAM -- 384 would provide a fair 
amount of headroom.

nginx and mail and DNS and NTP and so forth, all at once.

I note that EBay has lots of used 256 and 512MB DDR RAM available for
nearly nothing -- $5 to $10, the shipping will be about the same -- 
and so making this a usable system is probably within reach.

-dsr-

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#224451

Dan Ritter wrote:

> I can point to several VMs that are running useful things on
> buster in just over 256MB of RAM -- 384 would provide a fair
> amount of headroom.
> 
> nginx and mail and DNS and NTP and so forth, all at once.
> 
> I note that EBay has lots of used 256 and 512MB DDR RAM available for
> nearly nothing -- $5 to $10, the shipping will be about the same --
> and so making this a usable system is probably within reach.

128 and 256MB on the Geode - 12 years in service
buster with sysvinit, postfix, openvpn and shorewall

# free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache  
available
Mem:         248996       14508        9096         168      225392     
225612
Swap:        503996           0      503996

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#224463

Hello,

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 07:11:31PM +0200, deloptes wrote:
> 128 and 256MB on the Geode - 12 years in service
> buster with sysvinit, postfix, openvpn and shorewall

I have a Soekris net4801 which is an AMD Geode 266MHz with 128M RAM,
put to similar use. I'm going to retire it this month but it's been
in 24/7 usage for 15 years.

    https://twitter.com/grifferz/status/1276115086785069056

I still wouldn't use OP's system for anything except curiosity or
maybe propping a door open.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

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#224522

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Lu, 06 iul 20, 21:41:11, Andy Smith wrote:
> 
> I still wouldn't use OP's system for anything except curiosity or
> maybe propping a door open.

That's probably the only use for which it is better than a Raspberry Pi 
(or equivalent) ;)

Kind regards,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

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#224553

On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Lu, 06 iul 20, 21:41:11, Andy Smith wrote:
>>
>> I still wouldn't use OP's system for anything except curiosity or
>> maybe propping a door open.
>
> That's probably the only use for which it is better than a Raspberry
> Pi (or equivalent) ;)

Isn't OP's system likely to contain significantly more
user-serviceable parts than a Pi?

Maybe this is mostly of interest only to hobbyists, but it seems to me
OP expressed an interest in pursuing precisely that sort of hobby.

-- 
What do you want to take off? [hrzF or ?*] F
You were wearing a +0 robe.  The frost giant turns to flee.

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#224558

On Wed, 8 Jul 2020 davidson wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Jul 2020 Andrei POPESCU wrote:
>> On Lu, 06 iul 20, 21:41:11, Andy Smith wrote:
>>> 
>>> I still wouldn't use OP's system for anything except curiosity or
>>> maybe propping a door open.
>> 
>> That's probably the only use for which it is better than a Raspberry
>> Pi (or equivalent) ;)
>
> Isn't OP's system likely to contain significantly more

s/system/machine/

> user-serviceable parts than a Pi?
>
> Maybe this is mostly of interest only to hobbyists, but it seems to me
> OP expressed an interest in pursuing precisely that sort of hobby.
>
>

-- 
What do you want to take off? [hrzF or ?*] F
You were wearing a +0 robe.  The frost giant turns to flee.

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#224447

On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 05:47:19PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 11:37:28AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 05:34:25PM +0200, tomas@tuxteam.de wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 10:13:14AM -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > > 
> > > [...]
> > > 
> > > > One of the benefits of wheezy is that you don't get systemd.
> > > 
> > > Buster runs fine without systemd.
> > 
> > But probably not in 64 MB.
> 
> Most probably not. My (fairly minimal) system makes about 500M. Half
> of it is Firefox. One third of the rest is Emacs (with a fairly fat
> file loaded, mind you). But still X and PostfreSQL and...

A desktop is completely out of the question.  I don't know why people
keep bringing it up.

As a *server*, it is conceivable that one could get buster installed on
it somehow, configure it to use sysvinit instead of systemd, and actually
boot the thing.  I wouldn't care to attempt it, but it might actually
work.  Or it might not.

The closet I've come to this was with a mail server that I used to have,
which had 64 MB of RAM.  After upgrading it to jessie/stretch, things
started to go quite badly.  Eventually the machine died, and was
replaced.  Honestly, that should have happened much sooner.

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