7 Dec
1998
7 Dec
'98
8:53 a.m.
Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
7 Dec
7 Dec
9:05 a.m.
Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just
now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
The easiest stuff to get Linux up on are standard AT or PCI bus
386(minimum) or higher machines. Microchanel can be done.
(I did a PS/2 model 80 and 8590 at IBM -- but they required mixing
just the right hardware pieces).
My clone 386SX/25 ran Linux (SLS 0.99.13 through Slackware -->1.2) with
no problems. FreeBSD also worked with all the non-microchanel stuff.
Bill
9:34 a.m.
Bill Pechter wrote:
Thanks Bill. I guess the 5 units I have that also show a Unix jumper on the
motherboard should be very useful machines for this purpose. Now you have me
wanting to try one of the dozen PS/2 80's I have for a linux box.
Just to
refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
The easiest stuff to get Linux up on are standard AT or PCI bus
386(minimum) or higher machines. Microchanel can be done.
(I did a PS/2 model 80 and 8590 at IBM -- but they required mixing
just the right hardware pieces).
My clone 386SX/25 ran Linux (SLS 0.99.13 through Slackware -->1.2) with
no problems. FreeBSD also worked with all the non-microchanel stuff.
Bill
12:28 p.m.
Thanks Bill. I guess the 5 units I have that also show a Unix jumper on the
motherboard should be very useful machines for this purpose. Now you have me
wanting to try one of the dozen PS/2 80's I have for a linux box.
OK... some IBM PS/2 type want to tell me what the Unix jumper was for.
(I figure AIX on PS/2 may have wanted a different drive translation?...)
Bill
8 Dec
8 Dec
12:32 a.m.
The Unix jumper is on some Intel desktop 386DX machines I have, not PS/2 machines
that I've ever seen (there may be though). The Intel units are very nicely shaped
and very durable, as evidenced by the sore back I got from moving them around the
other day - and I don't already have a bad back.
Bill Pechter wrote:
Thanks Bill. I guess the 5 units I have that also show a Unix jumper on the
motherboard should be very useful machines for this purpose. Now you have me
wanting to try one of the dozen PS/2 80's I have for a linux box.
OK... some IBM PS/2 type want to tell me what the Unix jumper was for.
(I figure AIX on PS/2 may have wanted a different drive translation?...)
Bill 
7:24 a.m.
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
The Unix jumper is on some Intel desktop 386DX
machines I have, not
PS/2 machines that I've ever seen (there may be though). The Intel
units are very nicely shaped and very durable, as evidenced by the
sore back I got from moving them around the other day - and I don't
already have a bad back.
FYI, some BIOS' also have an option for Unix or OS/2 in the setup. I have
no idea what these settings would effect.
Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always being hassled by the man.
Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0
See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
[Last web site update: 12/07/98]
7 Dec
7 Dec
9:13 a.m.
Just about any 386+ box with 4+MB RAM will do, but I haven't tried MCA
boxes, so I'm not possitve about those.
For anything less, try Minix or ELKS.
-- Doug
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just
now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
9:37 a.m.
Never heard of ELKS and will have to look into it. This whole Linux, Minix,
etc thing is one of my "to do later" items and I've not had time (or room)
to
get into it yet. Once I can get rid of this ton of equipment I guess I can
start digging into it heavier. Thanks again Doug.
Doug Yowza wrote:
Just about any 386+ box with 4+MB RAM will do, but I
haven't tried MCA
boxes, so I'm not possitve about those.
For anything less, try Minix or ELKS.
-- Doug
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
> Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just now getting into
> looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
> what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
> AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
> looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
> cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
>
> Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
>
9:15 a.m.
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just
now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Look over www.linux.org, some good info there. Many of these machines are
only supported by special ports of Linux (like MCA ps/2's) and they may
not run the most current packages by RedHat/Debian/Slackware/etc.
Certainly XWindows support will be lacking on anything less than a 386.
RAM is also a major concern. Linux is *comparatively* fast; remember that
it is more complete and robust than WinNT/95/98, but you still need the
hardware to run it.
One thing you might consider is putting Minix on some of those older, slow
machines and trying to market them as research curiosities to CS students.
It should work fine on a 286 with >40meg HD...
Cheers,
Aaron C. Finney Systems Administrator WFI Incorporated
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"UNIX is an exponential algorithm with a seductively small constant."
11:19 a.m.
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Aaron Christopher Finney wrote:
The MCA support has just started picking up steam again. Alan Cox has
started having fun with it, which usually means it will work quite nicely!
MCA support will finally be at decent capacity in mainstream kernels
starting with 2.2.x (as of yet no released). However, I don't know of any
standard Linux distribution that currently has built-in MCA support.
Although, I think I saw an mcascsi.s boot disk in Slackware 3.6. There's
a web page floating around that links to hacked-up MCA-capable boot disks
for Red Hat, etc.
I've got many PS/2 55SX's (386sx-16, MCA+ESDI only) running Linux. They
run suprisingly well (good use for all those boxes and boxes of MCA token
ring and ethernet cards it seems _everyone_ has laying around :).
af
---
Adam Fritzler
{ afritz(a)delphid.ml.org , afritz(a)iname.com}
http://delphid.ml.org/~afritz/
"Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were."
-- Chicago Reader, 15 Oct 1982
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
> Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just now getting into
> looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
> what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
> AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
286 or less: ELKS or another Linux-8086 package. Never used these, so I
don't know how complete they are.
386sx or higher: standard Linux distributions are fine. Most require at
least 4mb RAM (I've squeezed Slackware into 2.5mb, but it wasn't pretty).
looking at
possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
Look over www.linux.org, some good info there. Many of these machines are
only supported by special ports of Linux (like MCA ps/2's) and they may 
6:17 a.m.
Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 15:19:51 -0700 (MST)
Reply-to: classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
From: Adam Fritzler <afritz(a)delphid.ml.org>
To: "Discussion re-collecting of classic computers"
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: Linux Q's
X-To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Aaron Christopher Finney wrote:
If you find an website called MCA linux (has moved to different site)
http://www.dgmicro.com/mca/
the current linux kernel in it is 2.0.35. That person on that
website prefers no development kernels that other dirburations had
are always development kernel which I confirmed that when I d/l'ed
both types. That "MCA linux" worked on my P75 (8573-401)!
On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:
The MCA support has just started picking up steam again. Alan Cox has
started having fun with it, which usually means it will work quite nicely!
MCA support will finally be at decent capacity in mainstream kernels
starting with 2.2.x (as of yet no released). However, I don't know of any
standard Linux distribution that currently has built-in MCA support.
Although, I think I saw an mcascsi.s boot disk in Slackware 3.6. There's
a web page floating around that links to hacked-up MCA-capable boot disks
for Red Hat, etc.
I've got many PS/2 55SX's (386sx-16, MCA+ESDI only) running Linux. They
run suprisingly well (good use for all those boxes and boxes of MCA token
ring and ethernet cards it seems _everyone_ has laying around :).
af
---
Adam Fritzler
{ afritz(a)delphid.ml.org , afritz(a)iname.com}
http://delphid.ml.org/~afritz/
"Animals who are not penguins can only wish they were."
-- Chicago Reader, 15 Oct 1982
email: jpero(a)cgocable.net
Pero, Jason D.
8 Dec
8 Dec
2 a.m.
Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just
now getting into
looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
AT386es will run Linux, also most PS/2 with 386sx and above.
MCA has to be taken carefuly, since the support is somewhat
low. Try it - or read the MCA HOWTO (cheating). If you take
an actual distribution (I recomend SuSE) a 486 with 8 MB and
100 MB HD the minimum - But its still possible to strip it
down to run on a 16 MHz 386DX with 4 MB RAM and 40 MB
of hard disk space and still have some room for an application.
12 MHz 386SX is posible to use for a dedicated service (I still
have a 16 MHz 386sx with 8 MB running as print server). But
as workstation its rather painfuly slow. Here you might be better
off if you try to get an older distribution (Linux also starts to add
some fat around the bones).
Also with an 386 I recomend only command line (A/N terminal)
operation - using X gives you the same feeling than using MS-Office
on a 486 - Point, click and go for a cup of coffee until the button
reacts.
You should select the distribution carefuly, since some are
only running on 486 or pentium by default or, even if the kernal
will boot, a lot of the binaries are compieled for 486 or above
CPUs - so you have to recompile some apps.
On the 286es you need a different OS - Linux is a 386+ OS.
Maybe look for old copies of SCO at swap meets. I don't
know any free 286 *nix. Even Minix is still copyrighted - you
may have to buy at leas one copy of Tannenbaums book on
Minix.
Gruss
Hans
--
Der Kopf ist auch nur ein Auswuchs wie der kleine Zeh.
H.Achternbusch
11:53 a.m.
Hans Franke wrote:
low. Try it - or read the MCA HOWTO (cheating). If you
take
Reading the HOWTOs is not cheating. It's the best thing that the
free software movement come out with since the CopyLeft. (Linux
documentation -- the Networking materials especially -- is better
than anything I've ever gotten from vendors, and helped me get
"commercial" software working despite tech support's best efforts).
--
Ward Griffiths <mailto:gram@cnct.com> <http://www.cnct.com/home/gram/>
WARNING: The Attorney General has determined that Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms can be hazardous to your health -- and get away with it.
4:08 p.m.
Reading the HOWTOs is not cheating. It's the best
thing that the
free software movement come out with since the CopyLeft. (Linux
documentation -- the Networking materials especially -- is better
than anything I've ever gotten from vendors, and helped me get
"commercial" software working despite tech support's best efforts).
I've got to agree there. I've been doing Linux since January of '92, and
even then after a only about three months it had better documentation that
OpenBSD has now! The Linux HOWTOs are awsome!
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)aracnet.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
9 Dec
9 Dec
7:31 a.m.
>> low. Try it - or read the MCA HOWTO
(cheating). If you take
>Reading the HOWTOs is not cheating. It's the
best thing that the
>free software movement come out with since the CopyLeft. (Linux
>documentation -- the Networking materials especially -- is better
>than anything I've ever gotten from vendors, and helped me get
>"commercial" software working despite tech support's best efforts).
I've got to agree there. I've been doing
Linux since January of '92, and
even then after a only about three months it had better documentation that
OpenBSD has now! The Linux HOWTOs are awsome!
Of course the HOWTOs are a great thing - but they are still
written documentation - and reading manuals is cheating.
Althrough I have to admit that I found them also _very_ usefull.
Gruss
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
8:53 a.m.
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10 Dec
10 Dec
12:14 a.m.
> Of course the HOWTOs are a great thing - but they
are still
> written documentation - and reading manuals is cheating.
Does the kernel source count as 'written
documentation'? Is it cheating
to read that? It's how I seem to work out what some of the more obscure
functions are for...
Trapped me :) But hey, source isn't ment to be read ...
because you don't have to - thers always a disassembler :)
Gruss
H.
(I still remember the time when I was disassembling
almost any new programm I got for my Apple ][ :)
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
8:17 a.m.
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11 Dec
11 Dec
6:16 a.m.
> > Does the kernel source count as 'written
documentation'? Is it cheating
> > to read that? It's how I seem to work out what some of the more obscure
> > functions are for...
> Trapped me :) But hey, source isn't ment to be read ...
Isn't it? Next you'll be telling me that
schematics aren't meant to be
read either, and that a pile of service manuals is not 'light bedtime
reading'....
Got me again ...
Grins
H.
--
Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
HRK
9361
days inactive
9365
days old
18 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
A_Finney＠wfi-inc.com -
afritz＠delphid.ml.org -
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
dastar＠ncal.verio.com -
gram＠cnct.com -
Hans.Franke＠mch20.sbs.de -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jpero＠pop.cgocable.net -
pechter＠monmouth.com -
rhblake＠bigfoot.com -
yowza＠yowza.com