Running a Linux distro in AMD K6 166mhz and less than 256MB RAM

rokytnji · 11-17-2023, 03:34 PM

Agree with anti on a modern distro.

Or you could do what I did once

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...q-1540dm-1393/

excuse me twice

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...-1540-dm-1388/

You will want older kernel for older gear is why I am posting,.

Edit. Just noticed i586. Might work. Might not.

linux1234567 · 11-17-2023, 04:08 PM

(wrong post)

linux1234567 · 11-17-2023, 04:10 PM

NetBSD 9.3 was the best in doing my job
Slackware 14.2 was the best linux distro in doing my job

jefro · 11-17-2023, 04:32 PM

distrowatch also usually has older versions listed and some of the links are still valid for the old distro's.

Wonder if you can run Knoppix 4 or so?

Getting a swap file or partition on hard drive can sometimes help.

linux1234567 · 11-18-2023, 01:59 AM

the old versions is over than 4 years ago mostly

anticapitalista · 11-18-2023, 03:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linux1234567

NetBSD 9.3 was the best in doing my job
but stil not so good

It is not linux though and you specified a linux distro.

linux1234567 · 11-18-2023, 03:52 AM

I consider BSD as Linux-like. BSD is not Linux but it supports the most of Linux packages,
Some other OSs is allowed

anticapitalista · 11-21-2023, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linux1234567

NetBSD 9.3 was the best in doing my job
Slackware 14.2 was the best linux distro in doing my job

Both of which break your initial conditions.

So have you been unable to find a linux distro released within the last 4 years to do what you want on that old hardware?
It seems like the answer is 'no'.

fatmac · 11-21-2023, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linux1234567

I consider BSD as Linux-like. BSD is not Linux but it supports the most of Linux packages,
Some other OSs is allowed

http://menuetos.net/

business_kid · 11-21-2023, 10:42 AM

In reply to post #1

I've had very similar hardware. Probably some old IDE disk & USB-1.x? You should

Disconnect the internet.
Do Not reconnect the internet
Play with it as a museum piece, an antique.

Keep an eye on ebay/wherever for suitable old ram, and if you get some, it will ease a lot of issues for you.

DavidMcCann · 11-21-2023, 11:10 AM

The lightest Linus is AntiX and the creator of that has already stated here that it wouldn't run. I've just checked Haiku and that's not suitable, requiring 384 MB. KolibriOS will run in only 8 MB and on the K6, so it would be interesting to explore that: http://kolibrios.org/en/

boughtonp · 11-21-2023, 11:27 AM

It's still unclear what the actual requirements here are, but Wikipedia has some interesting options at //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hobbyist_operating_systems

Fiwix aims to be POSIX-compatible and runs GNU userland, whilst having modest requirements - from the announcement of v3.3 released last week:

Quote:

Originally Posted by https://www.fiwix.org/news/20231115.html

FiwixOS 3.3 is a completely free, open source, UNIX-like hobby operating system based on the Fiwix kernel. This is a true self-hosting operating system, which means that all packages supplied (including the kernel) have been compiled natively and no other operating system has been used in the process.

All binaries are linked statically and are built to use pure 80386 code. This is intended to make sure that FiwixOS 3.3 will run in very old hardware.

Hardware Requirements
FiwixOS 3.3 runs only in the 32-bit i386 architecture with the following minimal requirements:

Standard IBM PC-AT architecture.
CPU: i386 (with floating-point processor).
RAM: 4MiB (recommended 128MiB).
ATA Hard disk: 1GiB (minimal install requires only 200MiB).
ATAPI CD-ROM drive.

linux1234567 · 11-24-2023, 05:15 AM

Gentoo has like 99% chance to work in that hardware but too hard

computersavvy · 11-24-2023, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by anticapitalista

I mean that you won't find a distro to do what you want on that hardware.

He might if he goes way back in the archives to the time when the machine was built and search there. Certainly he will not find a current distro that supports it.

Of course even web sites now would probably not be readable due to the changes in http, php, javascript, css, etc.

business_kid · 11-25-2023, 06:58 AM

Some places have historical distros of all sorts. ftp.heanet.ie has them back into the last millenium.

The downside is that everything has to get beaten into shape. Those were the days of isapnp & pnpdump, and 16 interrupts. Better go for something like slackware that has stayed pretty stable, and old farts here (like myself) might remember things.