[SOLVED] the most suitable Slackware for a 486 computer .
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Well that is kinda the rub at this point. I don't think other than pure nostalgia and some true corner cases like it uses some custom card to control something else large and expensive there is much justification to run a 80[12345]?x86 class machine. A SoC system can probably be had for under $100 with faster storage, more memory, and enough CPU grunt to run software that was contemporary to that machines era in some form of pure emulation or accelerated even if non-native virtualization. You probably get a better experience over all too. The savings in electricity probably don't really justify buying the new kit alone unless you live some place where electricity is very expensive, but not having to have a second PC next to your current rig, likely does. If you are using it as some kind of 'network appliance' that SoC system is probably a heck of a lot more reliable too, that old PC is certain to do something like decide to not start back up after a power failure etc eventually.
Its sad because I had such fun with the machines of that era, late 80s-2000ish. There was so much excitement, room to explore, and try stuff. Where today it feels like there are so many road blocks, secure boot this, encrypted that, high speed serial connections everywhere, nothing like a word-at-a-time parallel port you could just start wiring discrete components on breadboard to. Seems everything 'new' now isn't new at all just faster and with more pixels.
Absolutely agreed, chemfire. I recall my ISA ATi All-in-Wonder card (the last ATi card I ever owned) in my Tandy 8086 (later, 286) came with a program to read and configure GPU BIOS options as well as a few jumpers to hard set some. DOS Debug was great fun and a killer learning experience. I used Modbin a lot and hot swapped BIOS chips up until Pentium II. It's very different in 2022. However the major difference in experience is software, not hardware.
I have 4 PCs setup and a 5th that I may get around to but I rebuild Slackware Install media with newer to handle newer peripherals and mess around with old versions of Slackware back to 12.2. I have very fond memories of 10.2 but it has proven to be just too old to upgrade much, at least for what hardware I'm running in 2022, of which the oldest is currently a T61P Core 2 Duo Thinkpad. That 5th one is a Fx-57 once-was-flagship AMD CPU but so far I can't get far until I find a PC speaker among my parts boxes so I can hear any beep codes.
About 10 years ago I ran a 486 as a hardware firewall running Freesco (a Cisco clone) first from floppy and later on a small old hdd. In 2022 a hartdware firewall can be built for under 100 bux, use 30-40 watts. and basically fit in your hand. I have an old dual drive bay case for exSATA that I'm considering gutting and building one for an ARM or RISC V based firewall and NAS..
That is true, but as someone who's created a few floppy boot disks in the last year...the amount of bad disks and wasted time finding a good one was way too high. Funnily enough it was the box of unused ones that gave me the most trouble.
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.
Hello chemfire, I really needed these information. prior to this I didn't have enough knowledge about Slackware's different versions and their differences. your explanation was so concise and detailed but also abstract in the meantime.
thanks a a lot.
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.
Hi slackmensch.
yeah it's just for fun and also to feel the struggle people had in the early 2000s.
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.
Hello fourtysixandtwo.
you're absolutely right, low ram is my box's biggest downside. 32MB is it's maximum ram limit (yeah it's upgraded(fortunately)).
thanks for the kernel suggestions I also was quiet curious about it's kernel limits.
thanks.
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.
thanks akimmet, I really appreciate it.
Last edited by SkilledPotato; 03-30-2022 at 08:05 AM.
If kernel version is a good way to choose, here are some historical references :
Slackware 8.0 introduced 2.4 alongside 2.2.
Slackware 8.1 has a global organization almost identical to modern ones, previous were more floppy-related, it's kernel is 2.4.
It may be harder using older Slackware because of the older organization...
Then the kernel stays in 2.4 branch up until Slackware 11.0, where 2.6 was in extra.
Slackware 12.0 is only 2.6.
Slackware 14.0 bumps to a kernel version of 3.2.
So maybe your best starting point should be Slackware 11.0, most recent yet old enough
Hello fourtysixandtwo.
you're absolutely right, low ram is my box's biggest downside. 32MB is it's maximum ram limit (yeah it's upgraded(fortunately)).
thanks for the kernel suggestions I also was quiet curious about it's kernel limits.
thanks.
I've added some more info below about the difference in memory usage between the two kernel versions on 11.0.
One thing I should add, if you are not already aware, is to read https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackw...lackware-HOWTO and with the limited disk space only install A, AP, L, and N disk sets. You'll also have to go through and deselect a few packages to get them to fit depending on how much swap space you give it out of that 700mb.
I am really surprised that the hard drive of such an old computer is still functional.
Why? As long as drives are kept cool they can last for decades. They just become all but useless for storage size. IMHO the worst thing about old drives is ribbon cables and the rounded versions aren't much better overall.
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