Agreed, Zoki.
I have a few 486's laying around where I see that I could use Linux and
get good use out of these boxes.
But, I would *not* go to the hardware store around the corner and ask
for a brand new 386 or 486. First, they would not have any to sell. They
would not even be able to order one. (I know this first hand.) I would
have some serious problems in buying a brand new Pentium of the first
generation. Honestly, I think I would fail such an attempt. I could
*eventually* find a dusty Pentium Pro, even though I doubt it. A PII
would be a bargain. A PIII will of course depend on clock speed and
additional equipment. (I don't talk performance here. I talk
availability.)
Having said that, I was actually looking at a used 486 at a flee market
a few weeks ago. Personally, I don't think I would buy one. I use the
ones I have, no problem. And I see no reason to throw them away. I see
lots of reasons for many people to use them, when they are already
there. And I think it's good that RH supports the 386 architecture.
That's respect. Still, I think it's really time to get a new generation
of distro now, optimized for the latest hardware from Intel. And I say
'from Intel' because they do have a huge market share, like it or not.
There are a *number* of buyers that go Intel 686 these days. For
whatever smart or stupid reason. Having payed such a price for a PC
(overprice?), the user will not be very happy to learn that the OS
they're using is optimized for a 386. No matter if the user makes use of
the power or not. It just doesn't rime.
Personally, i participate in two 'distributed computing' projects. The
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) and SETI@HOME. So my boxes
do run at 100% all the time, and I'd like to have even more power than I
do. My main server is 2*550PIII overclocked to 103 MHz bus speed. I run
GIMPS on 400PIII and 266PII. To me, every clock cycle counts. :-) Still,
I'm not ready to start re-compiling the source RPM's for my systems.
Best regards
Gustav
Zoki wrote:
>
> On Mon, 27 Dec 1999, Gustav Schaffter wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> ->I'm aware that many people run Linux on 'old' hardware. I fully
> ->respect this need, which is somewhat proven by the fact that I intend
> ->to install RH6.1 on a few 486's laying around (when I find the time
> ->for it) and I agree that there should be a 386 compatible distro
> ->available. Still, nobody(?) *buys* a 386 or 486 system today.
>
> *** The point is not that people buy 386 or 486 systems today - although I
> bought a A5 486DX-66 Fujitsu portable recently - the point is, that people
> do install Linux on older equipment. I allready run the Mandrake 6 distrib
> and I'm glad Red Hat allows me to install the latest kernel and updates on
> my Fujitsu; which Mandrake doesn't.
>
> Cheers!
> _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
> _/ Zoran GRBIC _/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] _/ Linux advocate _/
> _/ Sys Analyste UNIX & Oracle _/ Paris, FRANCE _/ Micro$oft clean _/
> _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/
> Mailed with Linux & Pine...
>
> "gawk; talk; date; wine; grep; touch; unzip; touch; gasp; finger; gasp; mount;
> fsck; more; gasp; umount; make clean; make; mkproper; sleep"
> -- Gavin, Linux mailing list
>
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