Linux on a 386
 

Currently, I have linux running on a 386 with 4 Mb RAM, I did it just for the fun, but now I really want to do something with it.
Does anyone have any suggestions?????
And I don't want to do anything web-related.

If your on a network, they make great routers, firewall or proxy server. Is that too web related for you?
not much else I could think of with so little power. You could turn it into a MP3 machine and put it in your car, I hope to do that soon.

Well, that's all I have on ideas.....anyone else....!

Yes, an MP3 machine is a good idea! But I can't get my CD-Rom player to work. And the harddisk is too small.

More idea's?

Um, target practice?

Isn't that a waste for a perfectly good machine?????

Ya, but what are you really going to do with it? It's good for learning, but I guess i don't have any real suggestions...

It was just for fun to get Linux on the machine, with no CD-Rom. Now I just want to do something usefull with it.

Use it as a minimal workstation connected to a fileserver, linux or windows.

For what?

You can make a nice configuration to do graphic (hardware) programming on it if you connect it to your normal PC with a serial nulmodem. That's also usefull when you mess up XWindow. Finally you can use it as a console to log the kernel boot messages when messing with the kernel.

What about getting a few more of them, stack them all together and build a "supercomputer"?

I read somewhere that linux is capable of building one "virtual" machine that consists of several machines.... don't know exactly what its called though.... :(

after that you could have it participate in the distributed.net or seti@home program ;)



[Edited by bako on 02-13-2001 at 09:43 AM]

I believe that is called a 'cluster'. I saw a book on building linux clusters at Barnes & Noble. I always thought I'd be cool. I did read where a guy picked up like 20 old 386 -486 PCs that a school was throwing out. He took everything out of the cases and fashioned a rack to hold all the motherboards and stuff. He claimed that you could use any PC you wanted, you could mix and match a 386 with a P3, or several of each and they all teamed up as one.

Sounds fun.

-Mark

Games!!!
 

There's only one thing you should use a 386 (or worse) for (if you only have the one, anyway) -

retro games machine!!

you are in an uncommon position to run lots of really great games which were designed to run as fast as the processor could go, and as a result are completely unplayable on fast machines...

unfortunately I cant really think of any at the moment...

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

or maybe http://www.parabon.com/cac.jsp
once the linux client is done

check out http://www.parabon.com for others

or http://www.distributed.net

Great idea's!!
A cluster is a nice thing!! I think I'll do that!