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-   -   Why is 13.1 RC1 still compiled for 486 support? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slackware-14/why-is-13-1-rc1-still-compiled-for-486-support-808221/)

gustavoc 05-18-2010 01:24 PM

Hi, my desktop pc is an athlon 62x2 with 2 GB of ram and is running Slackware 13.0 with KDE. For experimentation i use a P IV 1.6 GHz, Slack 13.0, no X. Asterisk server Phenom 9550 2 GB ram. Also Slack 13.0 without X.
I also have an old PII 400 MHz with 64 MB, Celeron 333 MHz and until recently a 150 MHz PI. Those three also running Slackware 13.0 without X and working as headless servers.
Those old machines are doing a very good job and i have no plans of upgrading them. They need to be secure and lightweight. I think that's done by running recent versions of software and getting from the distro the essential parts.
From my point of view it would be great to run the latest and greatest version of Slackware, having in mind the limitations of hardware.
Thanks!

Gustavo
Patagonia
Argentina

(First post! Sorry for my bad english...)

LuckyCyborg 05-18-2010 02:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gustavoc (Post 3973058)
Hi, my desktop pc is an athlon 62x2 with 2 GB of ram and is running Slackware 13.0 with KDE. For experimentation i use a P IV 1.6 GHz, Slack 13.0, no X. Asterisk server Phenom 9550 2 GB ram. Also Slack 13.0 without X.
I also have an old PII 400 MHz with 64 MB, Celeron 333 MHz and until recently a 150 MHz PI. Those three also running Slackware 13.0 without X and working as headless servers.
Those old machines are doing a very good job and i have no plans of upgrading them. They need to be secure and lightweight. I think that's done by running recent versions of software and getting from the distro the essential parts.
From my point of view it would be great to run the latest and greatest version of Slackware, having in mind the limitations of hardware.
Thanks!

Gustavo
Patagonia
Argentina

(First post! Sorry for my bad english...)

In fact, your single i586 machine was (until recently) the Pentium machine and today all your machines run i686 code happy.

I seriously doubt that a i686 based Slackware Linux 13.2 will disturb you and you confirm my opinion that a i586 target is more than enough today. ;)

davidsrsb 05-20-2010 10:06 AM

It's a long time since I last saw a working 486 desktop, but 486s are still common in industrial PCs and embedded single board computers - you can still buy them today.

Many of these run Slackware

LuckyCyborg 05-20-2010 10:19 AM

Industrial PCs and embedded single board computers are produced by companies. They have for sure a software department (read some engineers that earn money).

I don't see why The Great P should support companies that I seriously doubt that give something back.

These companies should pay it's software department properly, not to wait from Slackware to make their work.

So, the "industrial PC" argument fail.

Ilgar 05-20-2010 10:26 AM

Besides, I doubt that such hardware uses vanilla Slackware. They probably do a lot of tweaking and I'm sure they can do a recompile to support i486 if they want to.

davidsrsb 05-20-2010 07:07 PM

SBC users often give back code, both to the kernel source and various applications.
They are maybe more likely to buy a dvd from PV than home users too.

Embedded designs have much longer production lifetimes than desktop machines. This is why you can still buy 486 boards - for a >3 year old design running Slackware 11.x
If I did a new design, I would use a Pentium M or Atom

This means that the industrial/embedded community does not need 486 support in 13.1+, just don't drop it retrospectively in older releases

slkrover 05-20-2010 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyCyborg (Post 3971582)
I have a 25MHz I486SX, with 8MB RAM and a 250MB harddrive and I use this oldie as a home router.

But I seriously doubt that it can run Slackware 13.1 with KDE-4.4.3 as desktop. ;)

We should live with idea that a modern Linux, like Slackware-13.1, it's too bigger and want too much resources to be used in a i486 hardware without bloodish tuning.

For older hardware you need special designed distributions, with a very little resources requirement.

I don't see the sense to tune a blue whale with several gigabytes size for a target that never by usable. The I486 target I seriously doubt to have sense.

However, a I586 target is common sense, to rearch a reasonable old hardware.

Have you tried Slax? I think its the mini Slackware.

http://www.slax.org/

Rupa 05-20-2010 07:57 PM

Did anyone notice that you can't install stock Slackware on i486 and i586 anyhow? The kernel is build for i686 since ages - and as it seemed to please everyone it sounds reasonable to build the rest for i686 too, doesn't it?

wildwizard 05-21-2010 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupa (Post 3976020)
Did anyone notice that you can't install stock Slackware on i486 and i586 anyhow? The kernel is build for i686 since ages - and as it seemed to please everyone it sounds reasonable to build the rest for i686 too, doesn't it?

What?

This is from Slackware-current 32bit

Code:

CONFIG_M486=y
# CONFIG_M586 is not set
# CONFIG_M586TSC is not set
# CONFIG_M586MMX is not set
# CONFIG_M686 is not set
# CONFIG_MPENTIUMII is not set
# CONFIG_MPENTIUMIII is not set
# CONFIG_MPENTIUMM is not set
# CONFIG_MPENTIUM4 is not set


Rupa 05-21-2010 04:44 AM

You seem to run a different slackware than me:

Code:

dakini]~# egrep "CONFIG_..86" /boot/config-generic-smp-2.6.33.4-smp
# CONFIG_M386 is not set
# CONFIG_M486 is not set
# CONFIG_M586 is not set
# CONFIG_M586TSC is not set
# CONFIG_M586MMX is not set
CONFIG_M686=y
CONFIG_VM86=y
[dakini]~# egrep "CONFIG_..86" /boot/config-huge-smp-2.6.33.4-smp
# CONFIG_M386 is not set
# CONFIG_M486 is not set
# CONFIG_M586 is not set
# CONFIG_M586TSC is not set
# CONFIG_M586MMX is not set
CONFIG_M686=y
CONFIG_VM86=y

Note: firefox, thunderbird, xine and linux are compiled for i686 in slackware at least since the beginning of 2008.

Alien Bob 05-21-2010 04:55 AM

Only the SMP kernel are compiled for i686 and higher, the non-SMP kernel is still compiled for i486.

From the Slackware-HOWTO:
Code:

With most systems you'll want to use the
default kernel, called hugesmp.s.  Even on a machine with only a single
one-core processor, it is recommended to use this kernel if your machine
can run it.  Otherwise use the huge.s kernel, which should support any
486 or better.

Eric

Rupa 05-21-2010 05:06 AM

Thx, Bob. I see. As the same HowTo strongly recommends to install the SMP kernel even on machines with single core and as a default install installs header files for the smp kernel not for the non-smp one, I never installed those non-smp kernels.

slakmagik 05-21-2010 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupa (Post 3976386)
Note: firefox, thunderbird, xine and linux are compiled for i686 in slackware at least since the beginning of 2008.

Firefox and thunderbird aren't compiled by Slackware at all. The Mozilla Corporation has issues, so Slackware just repackages their binaries. You missed the jre (i586) which is similar. Linux has been discussed. And that leaves xine, which has its own issues. Mplayer might still work on a 486 (in terms of cpu, though I'm not sure what could usefully be done with it - maybe play some audio).

vehn 05-23-2010 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slakmagik (Post 3976766)
Firefox and thunderbird aren't compiled by Slackware at all. The Mozilla Corporation has issues, so Slackware just repackages their binaries. You missed the jre (i586) which is similar. Linux has been discussed. And that leaves xine, which has its own issues. Mplayer might still work on a 486 (in terms of cpu, though I'm not sure what could usefully be done with it - maybe play some audio).

Firefox, Thunderbird (perhaps Seamonkey) for x86_64 compiled from source.

slakmagik 05-23-2010 03:08 AM

True (seamonkey, too), but we were talking about x86.


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