Hello Linux Users,

I have a old AMD K6-200 with 64 MB ram. It has a SoundBlaster 16 on it, and a Ultra66 PCI secondary IDE controller. The system features 3 PCI and 4 ISA slots. I am using a DIAMOND Stealth VRAM graphics controller (ISA) with 1 MB intergraded memory. The system will boot a CD but I do not think that it will boot a DVD. If it does that would surprise me. What do you all recommend that I put on this old girl? I would like to file share between it and Windows 2000, and possibly my newest PC which is running Windows 8.1 Pro. It needs to be preferably up-to-date, but not too slacky. If it has to be text based I suppose that would be fine. I am kinda new to Linux so I will have to do a little bit of studying.

AJ

You are not going to get very far with that, unless for some specialised use, like a home server.

One of the lightest distros is AntiX. That will run in 64MB but your internet access will be limited by the use of the Dillo browser: it needs 128MB for Midori. They recommend a PII, which is much the same as your K6. Of course, if you ran Linux without a GUI, there'd be no problem.

To add to the above post

or older

http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/sf...inux/releases/

Text based are core isos on that page. The ones I quoted are Jims Window Manager and Fluxbox Window manager gui live isos.

Other option could be

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/

Junk it, you'll spend more on electricity, in the long run, then it would cost to buy a new low power NAS device. You're energy costs would be upwards of 50 cents a day to run that old hardware. It takes a minimum of 160 MB of ram just to, successfully, boot CentOS 7 into non-graphical mode, modern kernels will not run with the amount of ram that you have. You might be able to get CentOS 4.x installed on that box, but even that I have doubts about.

Does the device have a network card to do file sharing? If it does it's most likely only 10baseT, so at best you'll only get 1MB/s transfer rates. At that speed, it would probably be faster to put everything in the cloud. Amazon AWS services are free for the first year, including EC2 and 30 GB of EBS.

If you're strapped for cash you can pick up second hand hardware for pennies on the dollar on eBay, I personally think that restoring this particular system is a waste of time.

If you're really intent on doing this I would start with OpenWRT, as it can run on x86 hardware: https://downloads.openwrt.org/barrie...7/x86/generic/

That unit may be worth more on the antique market than the

Its a great old PC. NOT going to junk it. Yeah, it does have a Ethernet controller, actually two of them. Sorry I forgot to mention. It has a ISA DLink 10/100 and a Novel Netware PCI 10/100 (intel based) Ethernet controller. I have a 80386 system i thought about putting Linux on years ago. It has a old Coaxial Ethernet controller (speed unknown) and a standard ISA 10/100 controller in it. Anyone got a idea (Besides junking it - I can't stand people saying that. I LOVE vintage PCs) as to what form of Linux could go on that?

Thanks, your kindness I appreciate.

AJ

1 members found this post helpful.

I guess you locked on post 4 and missed posts 2 & 3.



From

If your skill set can handle it. Another option is This

In case you have problems finding the 32bit versions of the above

http://www.menuetos.org/M32.htm

There is a product called NASLite 2 that would work. However, that software costs $29.99. For $29.99 you could buy a Core 2 Duo system with 2GB of ram from eBay and then load CentOS on it.

NASLite version 1 can be download for free from sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/naslite/

The other alternative, which I already suggested, was to install OpenWRT on it. However, I do not believe you have the necessary skills to install that, and samba, on the box. Your options are limited due to your inexperience with Linux.

Could try slitaz. Really on the limit for any gui and modern full kernel.

Add 64 MB RAM and you might actually be able to put it to some good use. I'd have to agree that if you plan on running it 24/7 the power cost will be high and not worth it when newer systems are cheap and will use much less power.

Slitaz will not run on that computer: they recommend 160MB for a non-GUI installation!

Tiny Core is not really for small systems, as it runs in the memory. It took me over 180MB to run Midori, as compared to less than 120MB in AntiX. TC is really to create embedded or kiosk systems.

As I said, the lightest Linux is Antix. In 64MB you can run quite a few programs, such as Dillo (a rather rudimentary browser) and Ted (an old-style word-processor), as well as playing MP3s; Great Little Radio Player would probably be OK, but I haven't tried that.

It might be possible to create something lighter than AntiX, but that's not a job for a beginner.

Slitaz can run with a swap file.

"SliTaz GNU/Linux 4.0 supports most machines based on i486 or x86 Intel compatible processors. A minimum of 192MB of memory is recommended to use the core LiveCD and our new russian dolls system will automatically detect your memory to boot a low memory resource flavor if needed. The default LiveCD provides the Core system which is a fully featured desktop, a GTK only desktop, a flavor with just X windows and a text mode system which will run with only 48 MB RAM (but can still let you install a full desktop). "

I will agree that a more cost effective solution may exist.

Well, obviously. But to recommend a 192MB distro for a 64MB computer suggests you're not old enough to remember what thrashing was like

Though you asked for Linux distributions, I would suggest OpenBSD or NetBSD on that hardware. I would also suggest running X less. If it's just a base unit with a network adapter, it might make a half decent home firewall/router.

1 members found this post helpful.

"Damn small linux" hasnt been maintained since forever. The OS is very small and it might be able to run on that hardware, but probably without blackbox.

The distro is still very usable today.