Hey together,
(1) Thanks for the answers - especially the links to th eolder ISOs. Time permitting I will test if that works...
(2) The discussion towards 486 is getting off-topic in my opinion:
As mentioned in the answers - 64MB are hardly ever possible to install on a 486 board. Thus, yes gentoo makes it in theory possible, cross compiling even more and there is this github/youtube project showing that you can boot into a console. Great. But IMO useless: If you want to work productive, get a suse 6.x or something from about 1999. Willl give you graphical desktop and lots of performing applications - but no wireless network whatsoever. That is safe. Even more secure than a new PC with up-to-date patchlevel.
(3) What I want is: An old Laptop (no upgrade options left,64MB is all that fits, P-MMX is soldered, so also no upgrade...) with a WLAN-Cardbus-card. Shall at least be listening to Radio-Webstream and maybe load simple Websites (but since I HAVE newer PCs, that is not as important - intranet access to SMB shares is more interesting... - So, and now after unsuccessfully trying tinycore (boots forever and then does not go into graphics mode at all for me) I found slitaz and at least in an emulator it actually boots and runs (but rater slow) on 64MB. Good enough that I try to get it to run on the actual P1-MMX. On a PII with about 300MB I have seen it running satisfactory.
So - the challenge is: P1-MMX with networking and only 64MB RAM. (And it is only a challenge - I really have enough newer computer power and th eold box just lost its advantage of having several good akku packs - all but one died.)
Linux < 2005 (Puppy for example) runs, but no WLAN driver. Windows 2000 (latest patchlevel, about 2008 if I remember right) runs with network, but SMB1 and browsers are unable to access anything now due to missing https-protocols. Linux from before 2012 or so, like Tinycore, DSL, Vector etc. all lack on the browser-https-front too - and most do not boot on my 64MBs. W2K with some inofficial patching does not give me sooo much more options - less unsafe on OS level, but still worse than XP (which performs already too slow for the hardware), still no SMB2 and no https-protocols beyond TLS 1.1 or so.
So: a maintained Linux distro on at least 2015 or so patchlevel will be needed and still at 64MB. To this point SLitaz rolling LowRAM fullfills the challenge - as the only of many tested candidates! - but it does not boot on my CPU - that is why I asked for an older kernel.... - But right, maybe some applications also wil get in trouble with the missing cmov instruction - I'll see.
So, long story... sorry
Torsten
Gesendet: Freitag, 31. Januar 2020 um 13:57 Uhr
Von: "Rodrigo Tenorio" <rodrigo.boechat.tenorio@xxxxxxxxx>
An: slitaz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Betreff: Re: [SliTaz] Slitaz on Pentium-I-MMX !?!
Please note that a i486 computer(motherboard) limits the capabilities of the CPU.Those computers could not recognise a harddisk larger then 500MB. A driver has to be loaded at boot time for it to recognise a CDRom drive.They could not boot from a CD (need something like Smart Boot Manager). The computers did not have USB ports (unknown at the time). The CPU lacked PAE. RAM was also a limitation. I am not sure if there were any MoBos capable of carrying more than 32 MB.
However the original request was about a Pentium which overcomes some of the above limitations.
It would be more complicated than that. This is a change that Linux implemented to the kernel itself, so what you're suggesting would require using a much older version of the kernel to build in i468 support. That cascades down by require older libraries and compiler to build it. It would also require the use of older versions of services that'll run on the older kernel and a complete rebuilding of all the applications to work with older libraries, kernel and services. This seems like a lot of work to use a machine that's well over 25 years old. Alternatively, I suggest using TinyCore since it does still support i486, but comes with the above mentioned limitations and issues I mentioned above
Do you know any way to emulate a i486 computer? That way I could try to do build a Linux kernel that works on that machine. Linux still supports i486 up to this date
- Michele
I saw thing like this a time ago when projects ended [45]86 processors support. Maybe is the case.
In my limited knowledge on subject, solution is recompile slitaz kernel on your machine.
In any case, I don't know how to do it. Or if Slitaz has support for Pentium or it's equivalents, like K5-6's.
Developers should have some instructions.
Gentoo's wiki should give you directions, 'cause it supports i486.
In my opinion a complete rebuild of the system would be requird. My suggestion is to use a decent modern machine to build a cross-compiler that targets i486 and use that to build Slitaz; that way you could benefit from the better performance of a modern machine.
Sorry but I can't help beyond this.
Rodrigo Boëchat
Em qua., 22 de jan. de 2020 às 07:29, Torsten Schmauder <
tschmauder@xxxxxx> escreveu:
Dear Slitaz community,
I try to get Slitaz (Rolling, lowRAM) to run on an ancient Pentium-MMX (P54M) with just 64 MB RAM.
problem: cmov instruction missing, boot aborts (in Virtualbox it otherwise runs on 64MB plus some swap)
Now I need help in one of following ways:
(1) Forum registration does not work with several accounts/email addresses --> can someone help?
(2) Can I somehow ( i.e.: how? where do I find docu/tutorial) cook a Slitaz-lowRAM-ISO with a 486 or Pentium-1-compliant kernel? If at all - this here is the right distro for such ancient hardware!
(3) Or - is there an archive somewhere were I could get a rolling loRAM ISO from a time when such P-1-compatible Kernels were around?
PS: 5.0-RC3-ISO does not boot due to beeing not loRAM (?)
Thanks already for help!
Torsten
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