Why ???

just to prove it *could* be done... ;-)


LiveSlak running on a circa 1997 P-II, 266Mhz, 256 megs of RAM

root@darkstar:~# uptime
23:58:58 up 20 min, 1 user, load average: 0.89, 2.30, 2.39

root@darkstar:~# uname -a
Linux darkstar.home.arpa 5.15.10-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Dec 17 13:34:00 CST 2021 i686 Pentium II (Klamath) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

root@darkstar:~# free -h
---------total-----used---free-----shared---buff/cache---available
Mem:--233Mi---82Mi---4.0Mi----13Mi-----145Mi--------128Mi
Swap:-0B--------0B-----0B


And look at how blindingly fast it was to get booted up.

ONLY 20min

;-)

Loading kernel (& initrd) with BIOS functions is slow. Kernels are a wee bit bigger now than 25 years ago. OTOH, I have 64 bit installations that sometimes take more than 10 minutes to do the same.

My work pc is Windows 10, and sometimes takes 20 minutes plus to boot after updates

2 members found this post helpful.

Just FTR or for reference, until 2019 I occasionally still ran (and updated) a Sony VAIO Laptop w/ 433MHz Pentium and 512MB RAM that ended up with a hard 14.2 install until I just trashed it. It, was indeed quite painful to boot, but once up Internet was not at all painful. It had been snappier on earlier versions but at some point it was exactly the Internet that forced me to update as old versions of browsers reached EOL and websites start refusing connection.

I find it disappointing if not a little disturbing that "backward compatibility" now seems to end past a decade or so. As important as computers are and will increasingly become, a useful lifespan of just a single decade seems like an ultimate planned obsolescence to me. Rero boxes are OK for standalone function and local LAN, but WAN is pretty much out of the realm.

1 members found this post helpful.

There we go... much faster now after running setup2hd to install onto HDD
(also pointed slackpkg at slackware-current and upgraded the kernel)

Welcome to Linux 5.16.15-smp i686 (tty1)

glennmcc-PII login: root
Password:
Last login: Sat Mar 19 16:59:53 on tty1
Linux 5.16.15-smp.

Commitment, n.:
Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs.
The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.

root@glennmcc-PII:~# uptime
17:16:04 up 3 min, 1 user, load average: 2.29, 1.48, 0.63

root@glennmcc-PII:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-PII.net 5.16.15-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Mar 17 12:56:39 CDT 2022 i686 Pentium II (Klamath) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

root@glennmcc-PII:~# free -h
---------total-----used---free-----shared---buff/cache---available
Mem:--233Mi---20Mi---41Mi----0.0Ki-----170Mi--------199Mi
Swap:-1.0Gi--------0B-----1.0Gi

2 members found this post helpful.

That.

I used to really like getting new versions of things. Like Python3 breaks a lot of stuff. I've seen things in other software where they just rename functions - why?

I'd read on KML awhile back that they were discussing doing away with variables names like blacklist/whitelist. Gotta be PC. Don't know if they did that or not but Jeez - what kinda madness is that?

And while I'm on a rant it seems that the newer versions of some software really sucks. It looks prettier, better themes, icons, etc. But buggier than before.

Well, you beat me by a decade !

My older computer is a DELL Inspiron 1501 laptop, 16 years of maturation in a Slackware-barrel.
Perfectly up-to-date 15.0, and fully functional.

It can surf the web, play x265 videos (provided its not fullHD or worse), use a secondary screen (but configuration needs to be one screen on top of the other, because of a limitation on viewport size at something like 2048x2048), and, well, everything you need except things like a recent Blender because 3D acceleration isn't up for it.

Granted, it is a monster compared to your box : 2 64bits cores at 1.6Ghz, 4Go of RAM, and an SSD drive (the original HDD died painfully).
But still, 16 years isn't that bad I think

- Yth - I will *not* try to revive the 486 DX4-100.

These are the 3 machines of mine which were already running Slackware64-15.0

root@glennmcc-HP:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-HP.net 5.15.27 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 8 18:18:11 CST 2022 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Release Date: July 2007
___________________________

root@glennmcc-server:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-server.net 5.15.27 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 8 18:18:11 CST 2022 x86_64 Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E6600 @ 3.06GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Release Date: Jan 17th, 2010
_________________________________

root@glennmcc-i7:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-i7.net 5.15.27 #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Mar 8 18:18:11 CST 2022 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

Release Date: January 2011
___________________________________

Now you have my curiosity piqued. What value do you think you enjoy with a 2022 kernel on 1997 hardware? .. or do you have some semi-modern peripheral card on PCI?

I'm far more interested in upgrading glibc, e2fscktools, tar. xz, lilo, pkgtools, as well as kernels for running older releases on new hardware, but the reasons are primarily newer hardware support not available on old kernels. (I'm playing around with 12.2 mongrelized/tweaked to mess with KDE 3x)

What did you gain?

It's like 1998 all over again... Arrive at work, turn on computer, go to the bathroom, go get a coffee, make small talk with colleagues and if you're lucky Windows has finished booting by the time you get back to your desk!

2 members found this post helpful.

I still remember the first instructions I read on building a kernel. After describing the use of menuconfig to set all your options, the instructions said something like: "Type 'make' and then go away and make yourself a cup of coffee."

______________________________

As the subject of this thread implies, I did not gain a thing. It was just an experiment to prove it *could* be done. ;-)

Yesterday I did new experiment on that 1997 P-II

Here are the posts I made to my own message board durring the process.
_______________________

303) Sun, 2022-03-20 - 13:32:09 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
Now in-process...

100% full install of Slackware-15.0 instead of starting from the liveslak DVD

319) Sun, 2022-03-20 - 17:42:45 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
Done...

root@glennmcc-PII:~# uptime
18:41:08 up 4 min, 1 user, load average: 1.89, 1.53, 0.68

root@glennmcc-PII:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-PII.net 5.15.19-smp #1 SMP PREEMPT Wed Feb 2 01:25:47 CST 2022 i686 Pentium II (Klamath) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

root@glennmcc-PII:~# cat /etc/slackware-version
Slackware 15.0

root@glennmcc-PII:~# free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 233Mi 27Mi 29Mi 0.0Ki 176Mi 196Mi
Swap: 1.0Gi 0.0Ki 1.0Gi

320) Sun, 2022-03-20 - 18:08:44 (GMT-0500)
URL
glennmcc>
That's now Slackware-15.0 as it was on its release of Feb 2, 2022

Next I'll do these steps so that it will get all of these security updates since then.

http://mirrors.kernel.org/slackware/.../ChangeLog.txt

1) point the slackpkg mirror at the 15.0 repository
2) slackpkg update
3) slackpkg install-new
4) slackpkg upgrade-all
5) slackpkg clean-system

325) Mon, 2022-03-21 - 01:17:07 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
Although slackware-15.0 does work on this P-II machine,
this shows just how painfully slow it is.

time slackpkg upgrade-all


real 214m7.204s
user 120m45.219s
sys 73m31.827s

But, now re-issueing those commands shows that this system is
fully updated to the slackware-15.0 repository.

root@glennmcc-PII:/# slackpkg update

Updating the package lists...
Downloading...
Downloading http://mirrors.kernel.org/slackware/...CKSUMS.md5.asc...
--2022-03-21 02:09:09-- http://mirrors.kernel.org/slackware/...CKSUMS.md5.asc
Resolving mirrors.kernel.org (mirrors.kernel.org)... 2001:4f8:4:6f:0:1994:3:14, 149.20.37.36
Connecting to mirrors.kernel.org (mirrors.kernel.org)|2001:4f8:4:6f:0:1994:3:14|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 163 [text/plain]
Saving to: â– /tmp/slackpkg.0uuv6q/CHECKSUMS.md5.ascâ–

/tmp/slackpkg.0uuv6q/CHECKSUMS.md5.asc 100%[===============================================================================>] 163 --.-KB/s in 0s

2022-03-21 02:09:10 (1.29 MB/s) - â– /tmp/slackpkg.0uuv6q/CHECKSUMS.md5.ascâ– saved [163/163]


No changes in ChangeLog.txt between your last update and now.
Do you really want to download all other files (y/N)? n

root@glennmcc-PII:/# slackpkg install-new

Looking for NEW packages to install. Please wait... DONE

No packages match the pattern for install. Try:

/usr/sbin/slackpkg upgrade|reinstall

root@glennmcc-PII:/# slackpkg upgrade-all

Checking local integrity... DONE
Looking for packages to upgrade. Please wait... DONE

No packages match the pattern for upgrade. Try:

/usr/sbin/slackpkg install|reinstall

root@glennmcc-PII:/# slackpkg clean-system

Looking for packages to remove. Please wait... DONE

No packages match the pattern for clean-system

326) Mon, 2022-03-21 - 01:26:55 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
OK... experimentation done.

Will now revert this system back to its original status
of slackware-14.0 which is much more usable.

327) Mon, 2022-03-21 - 01:34:46 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
Will not bother upgrading to slackware-current
'cus _that_ would probably take about 3 days. ;-)

328) Mon, 2022-03-21 - 02:43:37 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
Welcome to Linux 4.4.301-smp (tty1)

glennmcc-Dell login: root
Password:
Linux 4.4.301-smp.
Last login: Mon Mar 21 02:47:32 -0400 2022 on /dev/tty1.

root@glennmcc-Dell:~# uname -a
Linux glennmcc-Dell 4.4.301-smp #1 SMP Mon Jan 31 20:05:47 CST 2022 i686 Pentium II (Klamath) GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

root@glennmcc-Dell:~# cat /etc/slackware-version
Slackware 14.0

329) Mon, 2022-03-21 - 03:37:40 (GMT-0500)
glennmcc>
BTW, here's the time it took to do the complete restoration to v14.0

real 50m22.247s
user 0m42.831s
sys 13m19.256s

Isn't it obvious? By running up-to-date kernels (and other software) on older hardware, you get the benefits of continued updates. Sure, one could keep running kernel 2.4 or WinXP on such an old box, with all the security holes that would entail.

And as glennmmc says, part of the fun is in the challenge of making it work and giving some new life to old hardware.

Thanks to Pat, I've gotten quite a bit of mileage out of "obsolete" PCs, as outlined in this post.

______
Yep.... new life for old hardware.

Slackware-14.0 works just fine on this P-II 266Mhz with only 256M of RAM
And it's dual boot to OpenDos v7.01 so I can play my old DOS games
of Doom, Doom II, Quake.... etc...etc.. without the need of going through Linux dosbox

BUT.... as my little experiment has shown,
slackware-15.0 just will not cut it 'cus it's just way too painfully slow to be usable.

1 members found this post helpful.

Sure, it's unusable as a "daily driver" with a full-fledged DE. But my old (1998) AMD K6-2 that I linked to above works perfectly well as a headless "appliance" running dnsmasq, ntpd, CUPS, etc. for the LAN.

Also, anything Pentium III or better can be repurposed to do crunching for science apps, via BOINC. (All of the astronomy BOINC projects I contribute to still offer i686 versions.)