Date: Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:51:42 +0100
From: "T. Ribbrock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: "State of the Art" on OS for the 100CT/64MB RAM (and the 96MB
thing!)
On Tue, Nov 07, 2006 at 02:50:19AM -0700, Lines, Nick wrote:
> Thanks for all the input - keep 'em coming if anyone else has any tips!
Ok, even if I'm late to the party... ;-)
I had Mandrake Linux 9.1 running on my 100CT (later 110CT), on a 20GB
drive. That combo worked *very* nicely and that Linux version was easy
to install, as Mandrake at the time had PCMCIA network drivers in the
installer, hence, you just needed to boot from one floppy (with BIOS
support), then switch to network install. Obviously, this requires a
network card and ideally a second machine that can be used as server
(though an internet connection might do).
I later switched to Mandrake 10.0 which was a nuissance - much, much
slower (most likely too much going on in the default install) and more
difficult to install (the PCMCIA networks drivers now reside on a second
floppy, which cannot be read due to Linux not supporting the Libby's
floppy - but you can install from a PCMCIA SCSI adapter and a SCSI
CD-ROM drive instead, if you happen to own both...). This was on a 60GB
drive.
Not impressed, I moved on to SuSE Linux 10.0 - for this, I had to
install the 60GB drive in another machine, as I could not figure out a
way to install otherwise. I still have this combo running (mainly as
MP3/OGG Vorbis player in our living room), but it's too slow to be
comfortably used as web browsing machine (also, the small screen doesn't
help - most websites basically *require* >= 1024x768 these days, alas).
I've also used it for some simple web development in this configuration
(Apache installed, with some PHP/CMS). To safe memory, I'm running
Window Maker and the odd xterm - I would not recommend even thinking
about any of the "big" desktop environments a la KDE or Gnome.
If I just want to check some mail, I don't even bother starting up X -
just the command line is sufficient and very fast. Even browsing web
sites works to some extend on the command line (links, w3m), though less
so than a couple of years ago.
SuSE 10.0 is still slow, though less so than MDK 10.0 - the biggest
annoyance being yast2 (SuSE's configuration tool), which uses oodles of
memory and hence runs as molasses on the Libby.
I'm still wondering whether I'll try OpenBSD on that box one day - I'd
still have to put the drive into another machine to install, but the
system as such is so nice and lean that it might well be worth the
effort - I still have the 20GB drive... ;-) Or I might switch back to
an older Linux version or something like DamnSmallLinux.
I never even considered running Windows on the Libby - the whole user
experience of a Windows desktop is so annoyingly cumbersome to me that
it drives me insane within a very short period of time. Bad enough that
I have to use it at work... :-}
Cheerio,
Thomas
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Ribbrock http://www.ribbrock.org
"You have to live on the edge of reality - to make your dreams come true!"
