I am in need of a distrobution of linux that supports the following:

-able to be run on an i286 (16MHz) single board computer running out of flash ram (the mother board sees it as a harddrive)

-contains a free compiler for c or c++ or some derivative there of

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

If not linux, is there anything out there that is free and easy?

Thanks.

Linux was originally created on the i386 and I don't know if it is possible to compile it for a 286, maybe

To quote from the TLDP

Therefore, running Linux on a 286 would not be feasible. As SuperCoffeeMan indicated, perhaps somebody out there has a port for it, but to the best of my knowledge you would need at least a 386. -- J.W.

I guess minix might be viable on i286

Linux is a 32-bit OS. It won't work on anything less than an i386.

There are revisions of Linux for 286 though they will have a lot problems. This is because the 286 projects have stopped. You are on your own if you want to have a special program like GUI.

Where might I find one of the old projects for the i286? I dont need anything special, half the time a monitor or video card wont even be connected. All I need to do is write a program to control an 8-bit ISA data input output board.

I'm probably going to get flamed (putting on my asbestos suit) but linux really isn't practical on a 286. I would think about djgpp on msdos 6.x.

Have a look at minix, it should run fine on that hardware...

I would second the opinion of running MSDOS 6 on it. It will likely run better than any Linux distribution is going to on such a slow processor.

If you don't have MSDOS or one of the other proprietary DOSes, you could try FreeDOS. I'll likewise don my asbestos suit and say that I'd recommend MSDOS over FreeDOS at this point. FreeDOS is better in a lot of ways, but isn't all there yet. So MSDOS if you can; FreeDOS if you can't.

I tried out Freedos on dosemu a year or two ago. Felt like the developers were going for a "better" dos rather than a "compatable" dos. Couldn't seem to get anything to work right. For one thing, there seemed to be major differences in batch file syntax. Finally wound up digging out my old dos 6.2 floppies.

Yeah - the ideal would be compatible+better. As is, it's a mix of compatible and incompatible; better and worse. Just doesn't feel or work 'right', though it mostly works.

And maybe one of them will work for TeasSumaire.

I had a feeling I would be brought to DOS. Not a problem, except where should I start looking for MSDOS floppies? I have a set of 6 and 6.1 but they seem to be corrupted because nothing will read them properly. I've found FreeDOS, but can't figure out how to turn the images into bootable floppies.

Also, I'm going to need a c or c++ compiler (or a some way to convert the c addresses 0x300 - 0x331 to whatever address format QBasic uses. With that, is 0xff the hex equivilant of 1111 1111 binary and 255 decimal?

Thanks for all the help guys....my knowledge is very specific, and programming across languages isnt one of the specifics.

That's why I mentioned djgpp. It's basically a port of the gcc to dos. Console mode programs only, iirc. You can get rhide as well if you need an ide.
The 0x prefix is generally used to specify hex, so yes 0xff = 1111 1111 = 255 . Been a long time since I used qbasic, but I seem to recall there is no way to access port addresses, if that is what you have in mind. No peek or poke commands. (I could be wrong.)

>> opps. djgpp requires 32 bit as well. If you use dos you may have to dig up some old version of borland's compiler. I don't know anything about minix, maybe that might suit your purposes better.