Which distro for a notebook 133 MHz 16Mb Ram?

veerain · 04-07-2015, 11:13 PM

There is also nanolinux. Try it.

TobiSGD · 04-08-2015, 03:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veerain

There is also nanolinux. Try it.

Why people recommend distributions that are loaded completely into RAM for machines with a serious lack of RAM is beyond my understanding. While I have quoted you, vererain, this statement is not only directed at you, I have seen this over and over again from different members in different threads over the years I am participating here.

veerain · 04-09-2015, 12:53 AM

@TobiSGD: You are right.

But if one has skill one can adapt it for small system without loading it in ram in a deficient system.

Even the OP may build his own small system using modified LFS/CLFS.

mjolnir · 04-09-2015, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

We've established that no Linux, even in CLI mode, will run in 16MB. But if you're interested in seeing what you can do with an old computer, there are possibilities.

KolibriOS requires 8MB and a Pentium I (they recommend 16MB for watching videos). It offers a GUI, "word processor, image viewer, graphical editor, web browser and well over 30 exciting games".
http://kolibrios.org/en/
I tested it quite some time ago, but it seemed good.

DOS is still alive and will run in 2MB with a 386!
http://www.freedos.org/
Although a CLI system, you have the Arachne graphical web-browser: a bit slow but usable when I tried it.

I've run Arachne on DOS on a 24 meg machine with dial-up, it was fun - for a couple of minutes. :-)

Xeratul · 04-11-2015, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veerain

There is also nanolinux. Try it.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/nanolinux/
it loooks soo awesoomme - some alt to X11 finally !!

FreeDos looks like the Amiga desktop
http://mobile.osnews.com/img/15765/gem1.png

TobiSGD · 04-11-2015, 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xeratul

FreeDos looks like the Amiga desktop
http://mobile.osnews.com/img/15765/gem1.png

It is the GEM desktop, so it rather looks like the Atari ST desktop, which also used GEM.

Xeratul · 04-13-2015, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

It is the GEM desktop, so it rather looks like the Atari ST desktop, which also used GEM.

Thank you. It looks very beautiful and fine to read (size of objects, fonts,...). Is it possible to run the GEM on Linux (instead of X11 xorg server)? - it seems that not , but nothing is impossible.

TobiSGD · 04-14-2015, 03:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xeratul

Thank you. It looks very beautiful and fine to read (size of objects, fonts,...). Is it possible to run the GEM on Linux (instead of X11 xorg server)? - it seems that not , but nothing is impossible.

What you see in FreeDOS is not GEM itself, but OpenGEM, a fork of GEM. OpenGEM is only available for DOS and older versions of Windows. There is alse FreeGEM, but that is also DOS-only. Both versions and the original GEM are licensed under GPL, so it may be possible to port it, if someone wants to go through that.

veerain · 04-14-2015, 03:39 AM

One also can use DirectFB to avoid X11/Wayland. DirectFB site has some useful links.

Xeratul · 04-15-2015, 02:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

What you see in FreeDOS is not GEM itself, but OpenGEM, a fork of GEM. OpenGEM is only available for DOS and older versions of Windows. There is alse FreeGEM, but that is also DOS-only. Both versions and the original GEM are licensed under GPL, so it may be possible to port it, if someone wants to go through that.

Hi Tobi,

how would you foreseen the procedure to bring OPENGEM to linux? To clone graphics.c lib and rewrite it to SDL?
I dont like SDL.

TobiSGD · 04-15-2015, 02:24 PM

Sorry, not a coder, can't help with that.

Xeratul · 04-16-2015, 12:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TobiSGD

Sorry, not a coder, can't help with that.

well the source code, I would be pleased to find it.
It seems that there is a layer of ruby.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...ms-source-code

opengem should maybe be coded with coders that are purist, and light-weight oriented:
CODING IN C or in ASSEMBLER !!!!

There is no doubt that X11 is great, fast and so on.
FBDEV is bit lighter/faster, but unfinished and full of problems. You lack of important things from X11.
Believe me FBDEV is NOT the lightway to go at all!

"Koriolalis" gave us an Assembler-coded graphical layer, which is very fast.

A similar one for Linux (in C or Assembler) could be great to make use of machine.

All work for DOS, and never anything for Linux. This could be seen unfair that so much exist for DOS. Linux offers the same and even more as DOS.

Furthermore, look, windows 3.1 is only 14 MB !!!!!!!! It runs on all machines !! Even a DX486!!
It would take one week of work to make a first graphical layer with minimal decoration.
There are so much lack of devs in this direction compared to the DOS-community.

Look people are still talking about coyote and damnsmalllinux,... and those projects arent running since about 20 years.

Xeratul · 04-16-2015, 12:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by veerain

There is also nanolinux. Try it.

I ran it on vmware linux. It is pretty nice.
look

I would dream to have a clone of opengem or windows 3.1 for linux code in C.

what about xcb , a replacement of xlib?
http://xcb.freedesktop.org/

EDIT:
WHERE to find the source code of NANO-X (tiny graphical layer, replacement of x11)?

I try to learn the "hello world" or graphic on fbdev. I compiled. why this does not show anything on my framebuffer?

Quote:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <linux/fb.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/ioctl.h>

int
main()
{
int fb = 0;
struct fb_fix_screeninfo finfo;
struct fb_var_screeninfo vinfo;
long int screensize = 0;
char *fbp = 0;
int x = 0, y = 0;
long int location = 0;

fb = open("/dev/fb0", O_RDWR);
if (fb == -1) {
perror("Error: cannot open framebuffer device");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

if (ioctl(fb, FBIOGET_FSCREENINFO, &finfo) == -1) {
perror("Error reading fixed information");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

if (ioctl(fb, FBIOGET_VSCREENINFO, &vinfo) == -1) {
perror("Error reading variable information");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

printf("dxd, dbpp\n", vinfo.xres, vinfo.yres, vinfo.bits_per_pixel);

if (vinfo.bits_per_pixel != 32) {
fprintf(stderr, "Error: 32bpp expected");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

screensize = vinfo.xres * vinfo.yres * vinfo.bits_per_pixel / 8;

fbp = (char *) mmap(0, screensize, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE, MAP_SHARED, fb, 0);
if ((long) fbp == -1) {
perror("Error: failed to map framebuffer device to memory");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

for (y = 200; y < 400; y++) {
for (x = 200; x < 400; x++) {
location = (x+vinfo.xoffset) * (vinfo.bits_per_pixel/8) +
(y+vinfo.yoffset) * finfo.line_length;

*(fbp + location) = 140;
*(fbp + location + 1) = 70;
*(fbp + location + 2) = 70;
*(fbp + location + 3) = 0;
}
}

munmap(fbp, screensize);

close(fb);
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}

this code is not working at all either: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4...ux-framebuffer

TobiSGD · 04-16-2015, 04:42 AM

Are you trying to run fbdev programs under X? I am not sure that that will work, I always was under the impression that fbdev programs have to be run on a pure CLI system.

TobiSGD · 04-16-2015, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xeratul

WHERE to find the source code of NANO-X (tiny graphical layer, replacement of x11)?

Well, you can get it from the Nano-X website: http://microwindows.org/

And the source for OpenGEM (not sure about Ruby, the site it is written in C and Pascal): http://sourceforge.net/projects/opengem/