I've had good luck installing SuSE 7.2 on older machines. Some of the latest distros (of Mandrake and SuSE) are a little intolerant of older hardware. The text based Yast1 does a good job of installing non-distro software if an app needs to be upgraded. I have 7.2 on a Toshiba Libretto Pentium 32 mb 75mhz (upgraded to 120mhz since) running icewm and get decent performance - read that 'no increadibly long waits'. I had Win98 AND SuSE on the original 770mb disk too.

This is how I find what processor I have with a Mandrake 8.1 install CD.
Boot with the install CD. Press F1 for "other options". As described onscreen I type "rescue" and press enter. The rescue program loads. When the program has loaded I have a screen with a giant penguin and a rescue prompt.
When you get that far it is a simple matter to type:
cat /proc/cpuinfo

Your cpu will be identified.
Read the screen as you go through the steps in case your version is slightly different.

If you have a 200MHz CPU... non intel... then I'm thinking AMD k6.. possibly a cyrix.

Both are 586 class, both have a co processor, neither probably have MMX.

They're kind of bastard childs in the socket 5/7 CPU arena.

However, there are plenty of distributions compiled for i386... but if you find one compiled for i586 that you want to try, I would give it a shot and not assume it's hopeless.


Visual inspection of the inside of the computer could probably tell us... looking at the socket, telling us what type/speed of RAM... naming the brand/model of motherboard or chipset... or even brand/model of computer.


If you have a socket 2/3 then you have a 486, 66MHz was the fastest intel CPU made here... AMD made upto 120MHz

socket5 would be a nonMMX 586 on a 50-66mHz bus... 233MHz is typically the fastest CPU here... with 66-120MHz being common

socket 7 is a 586 class machine ranging from 50-100MHz FSB, probably has MMX, probably has a 133-500MHz CPU. AMD's k6-2 and k6-3 are the fastest here.

cant u have a dx4 running at 200mhz? or does it run at 100?

Tiny Linux can be installed on a 486 DX. I have done it on a Toshiba 1910 notebook with 12 MB workspace and 210 MB harddisk, running X.

100MHz.. it's all marketting


486's ran on either a 25 or 33MHz bus... a DX2/SX2 would be a 50/66MHz part(the 2 meaning it had a multiplier of 2)...

Incidentally, I believe I've also seen 75MHz 486's being called DX4's... most likely this was a stupid marketing thing that destroys the foundations of all things technical... the multiplier on these was probably actually 3.

The problem was that intel reserved the name dx3 as a 2.5 multiplier (smart, eh?)

then DX4 came around and CPU makers just made it a multiplier of 3...

marketting at its best..... err worst...


There are some intel DX4s and they are, infact, a 100MHz part.. but they were produced mainly for laptops or special purpose machines.. I've never seen them used in a typical desktop...

> 486's ran on either a 25 or 33MHz bus... a DX2/SX2 would be a 50/66MHz part(the 2 meaning it had a multiplier of 2)...

except for the amd and cyrix 486s that used a 40mhz bus ;>) like the 120 you mentioned and the dx/2 80s by amd and cyrix. they also made a 386/40. i know i've owned all of the at one time or another - still have the 120...

me and my friend installed redhat 9 and suse 8.1 on a 200mhz and a 120mhz pc. the 120mhz computer had 1gb of hard disk space so distros are fairly customisable.

I have installed Mandrake on some of the oldest, trashiest machines available... Remember the whole idea of Mandrake was that it was a redhat base compiled and optomised for the pentium class machines only. I have sucessfully installed it on P200/MMX, P2 233, K6 200 and a cyrix 233. They make decient log servers and dns machines... Redhat will work on 486 and might still work on 386 based machines.

The fastest 486 class I know of was the amd 5x86 dx100 which was a 486 with a 3:1 clock.

To find out what processor you have from windows <right click> on "my Computer" and select properties...

Ron

> The fastest 486 class I know of was the amd 5x86 dx100 which was a 486 with a 3:1 clock.

actually there was an amd 5x86 133 too.... it wasn't noticably faster than the 486/120 because of it's use of the 33mhz bus speed vs. the 40mhz bus speed of the 486/120. too bad amd wasn't all that accomplished at advertising back then, because month by month for several years almost all of their processors out performed intel's while still being a lot cheaper.

i don't think the processor is as much of a problem as the video card. the support for isa bus cards seems to be working its way out of x. the last time i tried to install on an old machine tzeng et4000 & et6000 cards wouldn't work when they used to be well suppported. sure they'ld run in vga, but a lot of software now assumes 800x600 at least and won't re-size down (didn't try frame buffer since it was early in it's existence).

terry

486 (Intel family lineage)
486DX16
486DX20
486DX25
486DX33
486DX50 (was sold in VERY limited quanities)
486DX2/50 (50Mhz CPU, 25Mhz FSB)
486DX2/66 (66Mhz CPU, 33Mhz FSB)
486DX4/75 (75Mhz CPU, 25Mhz FSB)
486DX4/100 (100Mhz CPU, 33MHz FSB)

Pentium (Intel family lineage)
Pentium 60
Pentium 66
Pentium 75
Pentium 90
Pentium 100
Pentium 120
Pentium 133
Pentium 150
Pentium 166
Pentium 200
Pentium 233

Cheers.

I can remember there was a discussion about Linux on an old pc. Now the only thing I miss is the fun running a Sinclair ZX Spectrum.

There was only ever one version of Mandrake published for i486. It was v.7.0-2 (if you remember the first v.7.0 i586 was withdrawn due to major bugs, hence the -2 build). The ISO used to be on many of the ftp servers but was removed about 6-8 months ago. BUT there is still one ftp server that still has the original ISO, go here

ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake-iso

Look in the /i586 directory for the ISO + md5sum - i.e. :-

mandrake70-2.i486.iso and it is dated 17-03-00 (17-03-2000)

The minmum requirements to install it are similer to what the i586
was at the time (except this was compiled for an i486) - anyhow
this information may help :-
Minimum Ram = 32Mb (real physical ram)
Recomended HDD partition = 1 Gig
(I have installed on a 500Mb but I had to unselect lots of things)
1Mb video card minmum - X-win will be slow (256 color or better)

There is also a funny glitch/bug (or maybe it was perposly done?)
You CAN NOT login as ROOT in consule or X-win, you can only
open a "users" terminal and "su" to root to configure it (be warned)

It will only install on a 486 I would recomend a i486dx66 or better
but dont expect it to be fast. It only has KDE 1.1.x its non upgradable
or Gnome 1.x I am not sure which version. You could use iceWM.

I installed it on a spare 500Mb HDD that I had (ie. for / ) and used
a bit of another HDD for the Swap Partition. So this way I had the
maximum 500Mb for the installation. If you have a 1 Gb HDD (or
partition) or better you'll be able to install everthing (kde+gnome)
on the 500Mb I could only choose KDE or Gnome - not both.
Oh I think I had to leave out all the Office + Graphic applications

It has been a while since I installed + use the mandrake70-2.i486
I just did it for the challenge - if you want a productive machine
I would not recommend using this - if you just want to play its OK
but be prepaired for it to run slowly in X-Win (especially Netscape)

I burned a CD with Knoppix - it works perfectly!