Very Computer

I would like to install Linux and to facilitate this, I will be buying another
computer.  I would like to know what I should use as a minimum - ie
processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space..  In other words, can I pick up
a cheap 486DX that someone is selling for a couple hundred bucks or do I
need to go higher end than that?  If you could email any responses, I would
greatly appreciate it!

Thanks,
Kevin  

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Quote:> I would like to install Linux and to facilitate this, I will be buying another
> computer.  I would like to know what I should use as a minimum - ie
> processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space..  In other words, can I pick up
> a cheap 486DX that someone is selling for a couple hundred bucks or do I
> need to go higher end than that?  If you could email any responses, I would
> greatly appreciate it!

Not something I find X acceptable on <G>.

But it works GREAT for it's intended purpose.

=Don=

Quote:

> I would like to install Linux and to facilitate this, I will be buying
> another
> computer.  I would like to know what I should use as a minimum - ie  
> processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space..  In other words, can I pick
> up
> a cheap 486DX that someone is selling for a couple hundred bucks or do I
> need to go higher end than that?  If you could email any responses, I
> would
> greatly appreciate it!

For practical purposes, go for at least a 486, 8M ram (16 if you're doing
Xwindows, but the more mem the better), 500-1G drive space, generic 2x
cdrom (makes those installs oh-so-much easier ;)

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Norm:  I dunno.  I usually finish them before they get a word in.
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 > I would like to install Linux and to facilitate this, I will be
buying another
 > computer.  I would like to know what I should use as a minimum - ie
 > processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space..  In other words, can I
pick up
 > a cheap 486DX that someone is selling for a couple hundred bucks or
do I
 > need to go higher end than that?  If you could email any responses, I
would
 > greatly appreciate it!

Well, Pete Poweruser will tell you that you need a minimum of a 300MHz
Pentium II with 256MB of RAM, Gigs and Gigs of UltraWide SCSI and a
Matrox Millenium video card. Then again, Harold Hacker will tell you
that you can get by with a 386SX-16 with 4MB of RAM and an 80MB IDE hard
drive.

Mostly, though, it depends on what you want to do with it. I find a
486DX-66 an acceptable system for general learning and playing. Check
the Hardware Compatibility HOWTO and the FAQs for informaiton.

The only thing which I feel is unacceptable is the file serving performance.
(Keep in mind that it acts as a server for one other computer!)

I also use a 486DX2-50 with 16MB or RAM and a 250Meg HD at work.

If you plan on running X and using your box as a workstation, I'd recommend
the following minimum:

486DX2-66 or DX4-100
32 Megs of RAM
400-500Meg hard drive (two would be nice)
VLB video card.

If you don't need to run X, I'd look at the following minimum:

486 (any)
16Megs RAM
400-500Meg HD (either one or two)
any VGA card

The bare minimum to run linux:

386SX16
4Megs RAM (maybe 5, can't remember)
probably an 80 Meg hard drive for a spartan machine
a VGA card

: I'm writing this message to you from a 386DX-33 with 10Megs of RAM.
: While I wouldn't want to run X on it, it performs well as a printer
: server, file server, IP masquerade server, and runs a small NNTP feed.

: The only thing which I feel is unacceptable is the file serving performance.
: (Keep in mind that it acts as a server for one other computer!)

: I also use a 486DX2-50 with 16MB or RAM and a 250Meg HD at work.

: If you plan on running X and using your box as a workstation, I'd recommend
: the following minimum:

: 486DX2-66 or DX4-100
: 32 Megs of RAM
: 400-500Meg hard drive (two would be nice)
: VLB video card.

I don't disagree with this, and while I wouldn't recommend it as a
great system, I think linux is slow but useful even with X on my 386DX40
with 8 MB memory.  The 386DX40 was the last of the 386 chips and is a
little faster than some of the early 486 machines, I use it at home
when people I work with visit as an extra "terminal" ethernetted to my
regular computer. Running X and having a couple of windows open makes
it a much better seat.  I normally run linux on a dual processor 266
MHz PII with 256MB of memory, so I do know what decent performance is.

You have to help it out a bit.  The main place to start is run twm as
the window manager -- you sacrifice some bells and whistles, but the
response time is much better than with the more bloated window
managers.  I have just 2 xterms, xclock and xload running and a very
plain root window by default. I found it helpful to recompile the X
SVGA server eliminating unneeded drivers to reduce the memory usage.
Read the speedup-x-faq (I think that's the name) for other
possibilities.

I just switched it on and I'm typing from it.  It takes about 30
seconds to get everything going after I type startx. I have f.exec
"xterm &" defined in my root menu of twm and I just clicked on that and
it took 8 seconds to pop up an xterm. A second xterm took 4 seconds
presumably because it didn't have to swap so much. I have a little 1-d
Schroedinger equation solving gui thing written with xforms, and it
also takes about 8 seconds to pop up, but all the menus, sliders, etc.
are responsive and work fine if I'm not running something else big in
the background.  For what it's worth on a floating point intensive
Monte Carlo code the 386 runs 0.5 MFlops and the PII runs 47 MFlops on
1 processor (The PII runs 92 MFlops when both processors are running
the parallel version of this code, and an 8 processor Cray YMP (even
older than the 386) runs 110 MFlops per processor ).

Actually, the real down side to using an old slow machine like this to
learn on is that things like kernel compiles take a long time (like an
hour or two) and therefore playing around with them may not be fun. I
can compile kernels, Xserver, etc. on a fast machine and just move them
to the 386 to run, which makes setting things up a lot easier.

Kevin Schmidt

No real distribution (Red Hat/Slackware/Debian) will even try to
install, though.

                Regards,

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                        Marco van den Bovenkamp.

        IT Network Engineer,

        Lucent Technologies Nederland.
        Room: HVS BZK 38
        Tel.: (+31-35-687)2724

You will find a 386-40, 4MB quite usable (8MB would be nicer), but you will
want cache memory (it is MUCH slower without).

Just my $ 0.02)

Klaus.

Quote:>I would like to install Linux and to facilitate this, I will be buying another
>computer.  I would like to know what I should use as a minimum - ie
>processor speed, RAM, and hard drive space..  In other words, can I pick up
>a cheap 486DX that someone is selling for a couple hundred bucks or do I
>need to go higher end than that?  If you could email any responses, I would
>greatly appreciate it!

A 486DX can make a very nice Linux system if you want VFM.  Make sure it
has a decent amount of RAM (8 meg min.  16 meg for X) and you're laughing.
It won't be as fast as a Pentium++ whiz bang 3 GHz, but it won't cost as
much either.

John

--
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Want to buy Linux CDs cheaply in the UK?  Join the Linux Buyers' Consortium.
See <http://www.polo.demon.co.uk/lbc.html>

I started with 4Mb of RAM just to see if it would work. It did.
Installing via NFS was flawless. I added the other 4Mb and ran
X and it worked slowly, but it was usable. I borrowed an old ISA
accellerated video card from a friend and saw a _big_ performance
boost for X.

Kernel compiles take forever. I mean it. It has never finished
one. I have tried a couple of times and given up, slid over to
the main machine and had a new kernel in a few minutes.

I have been thinking about removing the video and keyboard
components to see if I could build a 'remote-only' system that
would have just the ethernet, the disk, and perhaps a modem for i/o.