-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 12/02/06 09:03, Douglas Tutty wrote: > On Sat, Dec 02, 2006 at 08:46:37AM -0500, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote: >> On Fri, Dec 01, 2006 at 09:39:35PM -0700, Nate Duehr wrote: >>> Ron Johnson wrote: >>> >>>> And has *kept* them working on it, without turning it into a huge >>>> ball of legacy crud, without forking or general worker revolution. >>>> However he does it, he *has* done it, and that is his genius. >>> Some might argue these days with the "ball of legacy crud" part. :-) >>> >> Yet, others argue vehemently that Linux does not have enough legacy >> support, owing particularly to Linus' unwillingness to let code for >> extremely old hardware stick around. >> > > So if one finds a neat piece of old gear, say a 386 (which debian now > doesn't support) or even 286 (which linux never supported) what > monitarily-free (since I don't hack existing code, just write new) OS > options are there other than DOS? > > For example, on eBay there's a very ruggedized text-only (amber!) 286 > laptop apparently still solid and as reliable as ever. But what could I > run on it other than DOS? I would like to have vim, mc, minicom, ppp, ssh, > and lpr, in addition to the coreutils and a programming language like > python or fortran.
286? How much RAM? 1MB maybe, 2MB at the outside? Minix 2 (with patches) might help you some, but only with basic Unix stuff. *Nothing* beyond what Unix state-of-the-art circa 1980. Me, with a 286 laptop I'd install FreeDOS and 4DOS http://www.freedos.org/freedos/software/ http://www.freedos.org/cgi-bin/freedos-lsm.cgi?q=d&a=net http://jpsoft.com/ftp/free/4dos750.exe ftp://jpsoft.com/4dos/files/readme.txt Remember, though, that the 386 has been out for 21 years, and (in the US, at least) 286 desktops haven't been sold since 1990ish. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA Is "common sense" really valid? For example, it is "common sense" to white-power racists that whites are superior to blacks, and that those with brown skins are mud people. However, that "common sense" is obviously wrong. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFFcaRRS9HxQb37XmcRAsuNAJ9AMIv3iNraEOKLP1DS/bC7oYg9ZQCfRn+U vtCjwkxV7EAZ89dTKUj6lh0= =zTxy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
