Regarding the first machine, 8 megs of RAM simply is too little to run X.
You don't say how big your hard disk in that machine is, but if it is large
enough, you can configure some of it as swap (really, any machine with as
little as 8 megs of RAM should have 16 megs of swap as well). It will then
run X, but s...l...o...w...l...y. In my opinion, it will be too slow to be
useful, but I know that others on this list disagree with my view on this.
Also, you don't say what video card you are using. If it is one that will
support only the VGA16 X server, you will find the resolution disappointing.
Most video cards will run with the SVGA or one of the "accelerated" servers,
and you'll find that resolution fine.
The second machine will do better, but I still see it as marginal for
running both X and other applications, especially the more demanding X-based
applications like Netscape. That is, it is about the right grade of machine
to run as an X terminal, which in this case means a Linux host that runs the
X server but uses it to run applications on a different host ... in effect
using it as an intelligent terminal. This is sort of the opposite of your
guess -- you run the X server on the limited host, the X clients
(applications) on the remote server, and this way you get the performance of
the more powerful server (albeit shared) where it is needed. There are a
couple of sites that discuss ways to do this; send a follow up if you're
interested and and I'll (once again) post the URLs.
If used as a command-line-based host, though, this second host should do
okay (again, assuming its hard disk space is adequate). The first is going
to suffer from the need to use swap even in command-line configuration, I
fear (though theseriousness of the problem depends on what you plan to use
it to do ... e-mail and a simple editor like vi should be fine, but I don't
know about dosemu and "some database stuff").
As to your networking question ... if you now have the right cable (or
converter) for a direct host-to-host connection of the 2 Ethernet cards,
Linux will pose no additional trouble. Every distribution I know come with a
network setup script, and for a simple LAN like yours, any of them will get
it right. Linux likes NE2000 cards. You can look tot the Networking HowTo
for more info, but I think you'll do okay with the stock installs.
At 12:34 AM 5/14/99 -0700, JF wrote:
>
>I'm using a couple of old computers at my office and want to replace
>windows with linux on all of them. Before long I could add a more
>powerful server, but the current machines are 486-33's.
>
>I have a question about running X on these old slugs, and then a
>question about running X on a server:
>
>One is non-VLB with 8mb of ram. It's been running win95 and it's
>painfully slow. Got to get rid of it. I've been intended to switch to
>character mode something or other just to preserve some usefulness of
>this machine and linux seems to be the ideal solution. BUT, what I'm
>wondering is, since the employee who uses it is a Mac person, she would
>be delighted if I put the mac-like window mgr mlvwm on it. I've tested
>mlvwm at home and got it working. I'm sure this is less of a load than
>gnome or kde -- which I haven't get tried. While I'm sure character mode
>stuff would be okay --- since she really only needs e-mail, an an editor
>and dosemu for some database stuff -- I'm wondering if a minimal
>X-windows setup would be feasible on this machine.
>
>The other machine is a 16MB ram VLB 486dx33. It runs NT fairly bareably
>but I want to get out of windows entirely. If the other machine wouldn't
>be enough for X, would this one? ... or should I stick to
>character-based stuff on both of these machines?
>
>Currently these machines are linked into a little P2P network. I don't
>know how to do this in linux yet. So another question is: Is there some
>HOWTO (or some other doc) that will walk me through it? I'm using NE2000
>compatible cards on each end.
>
>And finally, as an alternative to having X on either of these machines,
>would it be possible for users of these old slugs to run X on their
>machines from another, more powerful linux server? And, if so, could
>performance -- depending on network load at any given time -- generally
>minimal -- be closer the the server's rather than more like that of the
>client's -- FOR each clint? (I've never done anything but P2P
>networking.)
------------------------------------"Never tell me the odds!"---
Ray Olszewski -- Han Solo
762 Garland Drive
Palo Alto, CA 94303-3603
650.328.4219 voice [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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