the most suitable Slackware for a 486 computer .
 

Greetings everyone.
I'm sorry if this is an absurd question to ask but I was looking forward to install an old version of Slackware Linux on a very old Toshiba T2150CDT computer laptop with these specs:
an Intel (TM) SL Enhanced 486DX4 75MHz CPU, 3.2GB of hard drive, 32MB of ram, and finally an internal CD ROM + an external proprietary floppy drive, unfortunately the file size is restricted to be under 700MB due to some reasons.
oh by the way, to the best of my knowledge windows 95 couldn't handle more than 500MB, I would be much appreciated if this is not the case for your recommendation.

thank you all for your time, I really appreciate any answer.

The latest Slackware version built for i486 is the 14.1.
I guess it should work fine.
And you'll still have a lot of (old) slackbuilds available there https://slackbuilds.org/result/?search=&sv=14.1

You mostly have to select a very light window manager (or none), and for the web, it'll be a pain whatever you choose (balance between lack of functionalities and lack of resources, I'll suggest dillo, and away with JS bloat ^^).

- Yth.

Thanks
 

Thank you so much Ythogtha!! , I actually thought only a really old version of Slackware would work with such an old system.
and also thanks for the link, I have never came across this link so far.

I don't know that will have success with 14.1 on the 486. If not you will find out pretty quickly because the installer won't boot. My memory could very easily be faulty here but I believe it was discovered that while it tended to work on Virtual Machines presenting a 486 instruction set that was because they were a little liberal in their implementations. GCC was emitting an instruction Genuine Intel 486 silicon did not have at the time at least when run with Slackware's normal compile flags.

You may have to go back a little further like 13.37 or 13.1 to get a working system.

Depending on what you are looking to get out this there are some other considerations. If you want a 'retro' experience an older Slackware from that time would be more authentic obviously. In that instance Slackware 3.6 is probably the version to go with. Should have good hardware support for a system of that era. 1999 was probably about the end of the period where a 486 might still been serving as the family PC, keep in mind by than 686 systems were affordable.

The next thing I would consider is Slackware 8.1; which in many was is the first version I think most users of today would 'recognize' as working kind of like current releases. A lot of stuff we take for granted now like udev, and kms isn't there. However the package structure is similar and things mostly have the same names.. It should actually run fairly well on a 486 machine if you don't go hog wild with toys in X; but you probably can run Gnome 1.4; or XFCE 3 - both of which will give you a modernish desktop experience. This might be the best experience if you are trying to really 'use' the old hardware and not just playing or taking a nostalgia trip.

- One problem you will have with these old releases is interacting with the rest of the world. Everything is using TLS these days and 8.1 might be be able to speak 1.0 but I am not sure. Certainly older versions can't. You might be able to slap some updated SSL certs onto 8.1 and connect to a fair bit of the outside world, or perhaps not. One work around around is an intercept proxy, that will speak SSL to the old box and TLS upstream.

I'm curious: is there a fun purpose to the 486 project? You probably do not intend to use an ancient window manager like fvwm or olvwm and lynx browser as your daily driver.

I keep old systems for specific uses, like using a Windows XP laptop to make Hi-MD format minidiscs from CDs. (There is still no FOSS way to make atrac3plus files or get them onto a minidisc, so one is stuck with Sony's craptacular music management software.) Strangely, XP seems a breath of fresh air compared to modern Windows...I wish there were still browsers for it.

I'd love to own an ibm ps/1 consultant: my first PC... Also, one can install slack from floppies. Mmmm!

Ram is probably your biggest hurdle here and Slackware 11.0 was the last with a minimum ram requirement that fits the bill. Most of those requirements are for the installer, but some of the package sizes start to increase too. I have a P90 with 64mb ram where the 12.x+ installers will hang on boot.

I have a 486 with 32mb ram and have 11.0 on it. I have both 2.4(custom) and 2.6(from /extra) kernels booting with the latter being much slower to boot.

Heh, even the in the mid 90s I got away from the floppies as soon as possible, installing from another HD or via NFS mount!

WHAT?

Nobody mentioning "probably the best release" of Slackware? Nobody noted the stellar release of 12.2 ? BLASPHEEEEMY!

Well, seems I might have been overconfident...

My last 486 was decommissioned around 2005/2006.
Though I'm pretty sure it is still in working order, I have really no use of it! ISA network adapter were limited to 10Mb ethernet, which was already slower than ADSL...
I have built kernels on it, the night wasn't enough to complete the job.

One funny thing I did with it was to use it as a firewall.
That computer don't turn itself off, you always have to press the power button, so "halt" just halt the system, leaving a text screen saying « system halted », and the PC is still running idle.
But the network interfaces were still configured, and the kernel itself was still running, hence iptables rules, forwarding and all, was fully functional.

Which gives you a mostly unbreakable firewall, because nothing runs on the box, there's no init launched (or more precisely it is stopped).
I don't think anybody could gain access to the computer or launch any kind of command in it, in that state.

- Yth.

Not a slacker myself, but I think it's awesome when someone keeps really aged tech running and relevant. Good on you!

The newest version of Slackware I ran on the 486 I used to own was 7.1. You may get away with a newer version, but I remember any linux with kernel 2.6.x and up was a bigger memory hog than 2.0.x and 2.2.x I was using at the time.

I recall a time back when Pentiums ran under 200MHz (although DEC Alphas hit 250) when a friend excitedly noted that he'd picked up a 386 PC for like 50 bux. he brought it in and fired it up and dejectedly noted "Damn! I forgot how slow 386 was!" I also remember a server quality 286 I owned that was shockingly fast even compared to a 386 excepting the whole mode switching issue.

The point is, despite that I routinely have kept older technologies alive way past their virtual expiration date, these days I yawn over a 486 PC but am starting to get rather excited about ARM and RISC 5. Go figure.

I do agree : ARM or RISC-V SoC are kind of exciting nowadays, they consume less power and takes less space than an old 486, even a good one (mine is a DX4-100 16Mo RAM (I think ?) with a 1Go SCSI HDD, so great for late 1990's).
And all that for infinitely more processing power with several cores, full modern I/O with Gb ethernet, and so on.
It's kind of hard to find reasons for keeping this old stuff alive...

Yup, but the floppy sound (the good one, not broken floppies or drives) is calming.

Anyway, this was the vid I was actually thinking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DBPuZHWEXc