I had an ancient computer with intel 386 processor. I am thinking about trying Unix-like system on it. But both Debian and FreeBSD require 486 or higher processor (even there is "i386" in the name). Is there any choice for that? Thank you.

I suggest Gentoo. If you already have Linux running on another setup besides your 80386 system, setup chroot to install a cross-compile of Gentoo. There are some programs that will break because of unsupported instructions. You could compile under QEMU to simulate an 80386 system, but with out loosing speed for compiling.

DSL (if it supports 386, I'm not sure.)

Also, if you still like open source but want to stray beyond linux, I know for a fact that FreeDos works on 80386

I checked both Gentoo and DSL. They both require 486 or higher. And I do just want to stay with Unix-like system...

You might want to see if any distros have an archive of their old releases around somewhere. Checking some of the mailing lists or larger ftp sites might be a place to start. I remember when I used Red Hat 5.x (long time ago ) there were some of the larger ftp sites that held the older releases for quite some time. Things might be different now, tough.

I picked up some interesting links with this Google search string: linux +386. Here's one distro I found a link to: http://freesco.sourceforge.net/

It says its a single floppy router distro, but it might be a place to start. The page says there's some add on's to it so perhaps that would be a place to start. If it boots you just verified the hardware.

One other thing. Here's a link to the old Linux 4mb Laptop How-To: http://en.tldp.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops.html

shva,

An i386 system needs a glibc older than version 2.3. Thats why modern distros do not support i386 any more.
You may be able to run a Gentoo ulibc based system. Thats targeted to embedded CPUs.
Ask in #gentoo-embedded on irc.freenode.net

http://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slackware/ carries versions of slackware back to 3.0 if your interesed in trying slackware

What I said in my previous post is you have to setup Gentoo in a chroot on a setup that is 80486 or higher. Then re-compile everything using 80386 as the architecture. Some programs will break. To make sure programs are being compiled using 80386 architecture, use QEMU. Like what NeddySeagoon have said read the embed document at Gentoo's site. Then transfer the installation to the 80386 system. By doing it this way will take a lot less time.

How about installing Minix?

Yeah, I sometimes get the impression that an i386 is the only thing that minix will run on.
Minix doesn't have a GUI, though.

good luck finding a gui for a 386...

Hi,

Slackware 3.3;

Now if your talking about current environments then of course the OP will have that problem. But if the OP wants a OS that will function on the 'i386' then roll back to earlier, much earlier versions.

Plus max out the memory.

shva,

I have a set of install CDs for RedHat 6.1 which I know will run on an i386 because I used it to run seti classic on a i386SX (don't ask).

I could host them for you if you are interested. You will need the CDs and the floppy images to boot and install on a 386 as a 386 will not boot from CD. Alternatively, you can do an ftp install, if you have an ftp server.