Resurrecting a box for Linux

[Stuart Biggerstaff]

Bob Raymond wrote:

>On Sat, 2002-08-31 at 22:16, Net Llama! wrote:
>
>>Bob Raymond wrote:
>>
>>>I've got an old Pentium that's been just sitting in my room for a year. 
>>>I got Linux running on it for a friend, but it turns out his printer
>>>wasn't supported, so he's still using his 486 with windows 3.1.  Now
>>>that its hard disk and 32mb of its RAM have been plucked for use in
>>>another 486, I feel the need to max the thing out.  I was looking for
>>>suggestions from this group on what I should do to make it run the
>>>fastest, and what use I might put it to (I'm up to anything, short of
>>>trashing it).
>>>
>>>Specs:
>>>
>>>Pentium 60mhz
>>>currently 16mb of RAM, upgrades to 128mb in 4 slots
>>>Roomy full tower case (it's a Gateway 2000 P5-60)
>>>Mitsumi 2x proprietary CDROM (I want to get rid of this)
>>>
>Correction:  40x Toshiba CD-ROM
>
>>>dual floppy (1.44mb, 1.2mb)
>>>no hard disk (well, not quite true- I have 1.2gb, 540mb, and 428mb HD's)
>>>one IDE controller
>>>ATI RageXL 8mb video
>>>4 available ISA slots
>>>2 available PCI slots
>>>250mb floppy controlled tape drive in questionable condition
>>>Soundblaster 16 card, not replacing.
>>>
>>>Should I maybe stick an old ISA SCSI controller in there, or would I be
>>>better off finding an 8.4GB IDE drive off Ebay or someplace really
>>>cheap?
>>>
>>>I'm also looking for a really cheap place to find the 128mb SIMMs.
>>>
>>>It had Debian running before, but I'm really not looking forward to
>>>sticking something like that on there again.  When I see that long list
>>>of packages, I'm too tempted to just install everything.  Gentoo will
>>>take for ever to compile on it, but it's not like I really need the
>>>machine, but it's just collecting dust.
>>>
>>>Does XFCE sound like a good choice for a window manager, or should I
>>>just stick with TWM?  I've had Gnome running on it, but it swapped to
>>>disk like crazy, and that was when it still had 40mb RAM.
>>>
>>I'm not at all clear on what you want to use the box for. What will be 
>>its purpose?  If its just because you can, then it doesn't matter what 
>>we recommend.  It will prolly generate a lot of heat, and suck down alot 
>>of juice, so it should have some kind of practical purpose, or it will 
>>cost you more in the long run.
>>
>
>Sorry, should have stated my purpose.  I'd like another "desktop" box so
>my good one can be dedicated to higher end stuff like audio editing. 
>This one would serve the purpose of word processing (i.e. with
>Abiword).  It's sitting beside me right now, and it boots just fine. 
>It's 1.2 GB disk in there now is worthless until I can get rid of
>EZ-Drive.
>
>>Personally, i don't find twm to be remotely usable for anything other 
>>than in utter desperation when i need to have multiple xterms open at 
>>once on a box that either lacks the horsepower to run X well, or is 
>>supposed to be a server.
>>
>>If you need/want some kind of firewall/nameserver/low volume mail 
>>server, the box would be ideal.  I think putting X on it is going to be 
>>an exercise in frustration, because you're either going to end up in 
>>swap hell, or be forced to run low resource apps which may not be what 
>>you're used to, or prefer.
>>
>>So, this all comes back to the original question, what do you need it to do?
>>
>
>I don't need a server, firewall, of any sort.  None of the boxes here
>are networked, other than to a dialup connection so that does no good
>(and I'm the only Linux user here anyway).
>
>Thanks
>
>Bob Raymond
>
With a P-60 anything will be slow, if you are used to using
something faster than, say, a P-100.  But at the same time,
if you bring memory to at least 64 MB you should be able to
install and run most Linux distributions--but you probably
know that.

Will the BIOS do the 1.2 GB drive?  If it won't, an IDE card
might be a better addition than the SCSI card you mention,
since the 1.2 will hold most OSs reasonable well.  If you are
limited to a small drive, Slackware seems to allow a smaller
install footprint than most.  It is fairly easy to put a useful
setup with X in under 325 MB.  An easy way to do that is to
start with Zipslack, which puts a non-graphical install into
under 100 MB.  Then just install the few more packages needed.
Zipslack is designed to run on a FAT partition, but they have
instructions on migrating it to ext2.

I agree with Lonni about TWM, but FVWM (and FVWM2 and FVWM95)
is small and fast, and provides something of the look and feel we
get used to with XFCE, Gnome, KDE, or Windows.  Just have to configure
it by editing a text file instead of graphical utilities.  Add TKDesk
(which gives a useful panel for launching applications, and a file
manager), and it is a nice GUI that works well on even a 486 with
32 MB.