Just because

[nightflier]

http://cincinnatix.com/vectorlinux/nightflier/vl6-ct50.jpg

The picture shows VL6 Light on my Toshiba Libretto CT50. For those who are unfamiliar with this "netbook forerunner", it has a Pentium 75 and 24 MB of RAM, with a non-dma hard drive. Not sure why htop shows 14 MB of ram, maybe it can't access it all.

Getting Light on it took some doing. Initial install to the hard drive was done using a desktop computer, and a cheap IDE to USB dongle. I lucked out in that the drive was detected as /dev/sda on both machines. The drive had to go back and forth between the Libretto and the desktop a few times. Initially I disabled udev, because tmpfs ran out of space and it just sat there complaining about /dev files not being there. Without udev, some stuff like my pcmcia NIC didn't work. Later I found a guide to a hack that forced udev to use hard drive space instead of tmpfs, and got it working.

To say that it "runs" would be an overstatement. LILO to CLI login takes 6.5 minutes, almost 4 of those spent at "setting up modules". From "startx" to IceWM takes 2 min 45 sec. Loading pcmanfm to manage the desktop adds a little over a minute. At this point the poor thing definitely crawls rather than runs.

Plain JWM loads in about a minute and 15 seconds. HV3 needs two minutes while dillo races to the front at less than 15 seconds.

I'm not going to pretend that I will actually use this machine for any real work, but it sure was satisfying seeing it operate. 

[M0E-lnx]

Wow. It sure sounda like a kool journey to get VL to run on this.
Just out of curiosity, what does it normally operate with?

I'm sure you can do some cool useful stuff with a minimalistic install and no x

[nightflier]

Originally, this $2000 wonder came with W95. I still have the 29 install floppies*. At 1.8 Lbs and about the size of a VHS* cassette, it was unique in it's time. Built-in expansion is through a single pcmcia slot. There was one open memory slot, it only came with 16 MB of RAM.

A friend was sufficiently impressed with the machine to buy it's bigger brother, a CT70. This one has a P-120 and was upgraded to 32 MB of memory. A couple years back he gave that one to me. I put DSL on it and used it for over a year until I bought a new laptop. It remains usable, with full apt-get and available Debian Woody repos. Opera even has up to date packages for Woody, I just put 9.64 on it.

After the arrival of the faster machine, the old CT50 didn't get much use. I wiped W95 and put Basiclinux on it, booting from DOS/loadlin. BL boots and runs fast and is compatible with Slack 4 packages. It has the driver for my network card so it remains usable. Still, it's more of a museum piece and occasional test bed.

* Remember those? I'm showing my age here. And no, I did not pay full new price for it.

[Windozer]

Originally, this $2000 wonder came with W95. I still have the 29 install floppies*. ...
* Remember those? I'm showing my age here.

Why, Nightflier, you young whippersnapper!

I still have a 80286-based "portable computer" with a whopping ~680 K bytes memory, snazzed up to about 1 meg 'extended' memory. It has a hard drive - a monster: 20 megs. It runs DOS 3.1 happily on its 24 x 80 dot matrix display (24 lines by 80 pixels that is).   Problem was, its 12 volt battery went dead and there was no replacement... so I just cracked the case, drilled through it, and glued on a pair of banana plugs with a long cable and aligator clips to my car battery.  Last time I tried it a year ago, it still booted.

Think light would work on this pre-historic beasty?

 

[M0E-lnx]

Wow.. that's history right there.

[Windozer]

Yup,

in  a few more years, I might be able to sell it on E-Bay for its original price of $1,500 (used of course - and such a deal with a 20 meg HD)!

Actually, I am really curious - will the kernel run on a '286 ?

- H

(Getting out my stone knives and bear skins...)

[overthere]

WOW nightflier that is impressive...maby there is hope for my ts4070cds..

remember the keyboards that hooked to the old b&w tv..I had a cool two floppy unit so I did not have to remove the system disk to load another floppy...

I still have the smart office system on 51/4 floppys for the ibm that had a 20 meg hard drive..I remember wondering if I would ever use it up..I booted it on this box with the 51/4 floppy added but it wants an old monitor likr the apple11 had with the male plug..Ah the good old days..

[nightflier]

Actually, I am really curious - will the kernel run on a '286 ?

Of course it will.


April Fools! Here are the original requirements for Linux 0.11, from 1992:

    * 386 or 486 Intel processor with AT-bus
    * IDE hard disk (no SCSI support)
    * 1.44 MB floppy disk drive
    * 2 MB RAM; 4 MB recommended to use gcc compiler
    * Any Hercules, CGA, EGA, VGA video card

I am certain the requirements have moved up rather than down.

[Joe1962]

Believe it or not (and this is no April Fool's joke...) Microsoft once licensed UNIX from AT&T and ported it to the 8086/8088 architecture, releasing it under the name XENIX. Later versions added support for the 80286 and eventually the 80386. XENIX went on to become the "ancestor" of SCO UNIX...

[Windozer]

8086/8088 ... XENIX.

OMG - Do I feel like a fossilized vegetable now, or what ? ... Thanks Joe   

That was my first or second exposure to 'nix
yup, the other was to AT&T system (# III or IV?)


You know, the Man pages in those days had some real wisdom.
Once, in school, I was trying to understand what the weird things
were that connected the uni's computers, those things my prof. called sockets <g>
Far down in the Man page on sockets, it said:

"If you are reading this, then you have the social life of a cucumber."

I logged out, turned off the old VT-100 - and went home feeling like a tossed salad.

[budulay]

nightflier:
That is very impressive. I have never imagined that such an old beast will run GUI...

Windozer:
LMAO! I can feel the wisdom rising from the ancient papyrus Man manuscripts
http://whyfiles.org/079writing/images/papyrus.gif

[Windozer]

LMAO! I can feel the wisdom rising from the ancient papyrus Man manuscripts
http://whyfiles.org/079writing/images/papyrus.gif

Hey Viktor, doesn't the right line of that papyrus wisdom translate to:

| In     
| far     
| future
| Man
| boot
| Pyramid
| with
| Vector

 

 

[budulay]

I struggle with verb tense and grammar a bit, but looks like that's exactly what it says