Old computers (Re: Choice of VMs under i386 Stretch?)
On Thursday, July 04, 2019 09:50:36 AM Richard Owlett wrote: > BTW my oldest machine is a Kaypro 10 ;/ Just for kicks, I'll mention that my oldest machine is a Digital Group Z-80, circa 1976, assembed from a kit, and with 2K on board RAM plus 2 auxillary memory boards with 8K each (iirc) for a total of 18K RAM. Long term storage was via a cassete recorder / player with a speed control to adjust playback speed for best result. I programmed some floating point routines in machine language, and had thoughts of writing things like a word processor. I thought (seriously) about buying (or, more accurately, wished that I could afford to buy) a used teletype machine (for about $1500) in order to have a means of printing. It (the machine) was working when I retired it, but I should make some fixes if I ever un-retired it (I took out the 115 volt AC cooling fan to use as an air mover between two rooms of my house), Aside: the Digital Group machines were pretty neat in that the CPU was on a daugherboard, and they made CPU boards with the Z-80, the 6502, the 6800 (iirc) (and maybe just the plain 8080) -- you could "convert" to any of those other CPUs by just buying, assembling, and changing out the CPU daughterboard. BTW, that wasn't my first computer -- when I was significantly younger (i.e., 10 to 15 years before 1976), I acquired two other things (both long gone, I think) that were called computers: * One was sort of a toy analog computer (one where you input numbers by doing things like using potentiometers to set a voltage to represent a number), and then read results on a meter (I'm somewhat oversimplifying that as I don't really remember much about that. * The other was something that I believed had computer in the name, but was used to control model trains -- the intent was that you could speak into a (built-in) microphone and it was supposed to recognize spoken commands (things like "stop" or "go" -- and maybe I'm misremembering the commands, maybe the logic was based on detecting and counting syllables in the commands). It never worked very well, but I might actually still have it buried in a box of old model train stuff. ;-) By the way, despite the years mentioned in this email, I am only 29 (or, at least, I try to convince women of that) (the same age (or was it 39) that Jack Benny always claimed to be, even when he appeared to be much older, (I woke up with a headache today, and am not "in shape" to do any serious work, so I'd doing things like this). Happy 4th of July (Independence Day) to all of us (in the USA or not). I hope the soldiers that might be marching in Trump's July 4th celebration are not "goose stepping".
Re: Old Computers
On 06/03/2015 04:48 PM, John Hasler wrote: Renaud writes: Which certainly taught you the hard way to draw one (or several) diagonal pencil or ink lines across the top of your card deck... Or to number your cards so that you could simply run a scrambled deck through the card sorter. That's cheatingyou have to hand sort those things!! -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5570c666.2070...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/03/2015 09:55 AM, Mike McClain wrote: On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 07:04:13PM -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: And I will probably not use these system(s) on line much if any at all. So most of the security issues will fixed or not will not really be a problem in this situation. I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. -- JM If you need linux on a 386 that's where I started with DosLinux. I still have a copy if you're interested. As I recall no Xwindows just command line. Mike -- Why fit in when you can stand out? - Dr. Seuss I may take you up on that, depending on what I end up with. Hopefully, I'll have at least one motherboard with a pentium class chipset. But, still, it might be interesting to get even the older ones up, just for laughs. -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5570c6c8.8020...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/04/2015 05:44 PM, Jose Martinez wrote: On 06/03/2015 09:55 AM, Mike McClain wrote: On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 07:04:13PM -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: And I will probably not use these system(s) on line much if any at all. So most of the security issues will fixed or not will not really be a problem in this situation. I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. -- JM If you need linux on a 386 that's where I started with DosLinux. I still have a copy if you're interested. As I recall no Xwindows just command line. Mike -- Why fit in when you can stand out? - Dr. Seuss I may take you up on that, depending on what I end up with. Hopefully, I'll have at least one motherboard with a pentium class chipset. But, still, it might be interesting to get even the older ones up, just for laughs. Just for ducks I installed Caldera to an older machine. It was pitiful to watch Netscape Navigator try to update itself. :( Ric -- My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: There are two Great Sins in the world... ..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome. R.I.P. Dad. http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/5570ca65.6080...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/03/2015 05:30 AM, Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 19:04 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. You could always try mining Bitcoin: http://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html But I guess none of your systems are quite as old? ;) Oh, Man, Holerith (It's been so long I'm not sure how to spell it anymore)...I learned to type on an IBM keypunch machine punching 80 column cards full of data for some statistical analysis (wrote the analysis proceedures in SPSS, too). Those were the days:-D -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556f5aa9.60...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
0C7 and 0CB compile errors anyone ? Cheers, Ron. -- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win. -- Gandhi -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150603170919.0286c...@ron.cerrocora.org
RE: Old Computers
-Original Message- From: Jose Martinez [mailto:jomartinez...@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 2015 12:51 PM To: debian-user@lists.debian.org Subject: Re: Old Computers On 06/03/2015 05:30 AM, Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 19:04 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. You could always try mining Bitcoin: http://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.h tml But I guess none of your systems are quite as old? ;) Oh, Man, Holerith (It's been so long I'm not sure how to spell it anymore)...I learned to type on an IBM keypunch machine punching 80 column cards full of data for some statistical analysis (wrote the analysis proceedures in SPSS, too). Those were the days:-D And do you remember carrying your punched card deck from the keypunch room to the data center--and have someone bump into you and spill the cards on the floor? Larry -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556f5aa9.60...@gmail.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/000f01d09e39$18b69dd0$4a23d970$@netptc.net
Re: Old Computers
Jose Martinez wrote: Marc Shapiro wrote: Jose Martinez wrote: Yeah, there's nothing like making an antique useful. I remember the days of the PDP-11 running *nixWhat I wouldn't give to come up with one of those old things!! My first programming class, back in 1976 was on a PDP-11. Those were the days. Bootstrap with physical toggle switches on the box to enter the binary code. Boy do I remember those toggle switches!!! A few years back, I built a Z-80 based toy, and that was one of things I wanted t have...Toggle switches and lights on the front panel! Made it work too. Put that PDP 11 experience to work! Here is a recent job posting for a PDP 11 Software Designer for a nuclear power plant. Some things never go out of style! Especially when working at a nuclear power plant. Hope they will have 500 years worth of spare parts. https://ca.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/28135735 January 20, 2015 Job description Design of new PDP-11 assembly level software as well as the extension of existing automated control systems to accommodate new functionality. ... Bob signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 11:45 PM, Marc Shapiro wrote: On 06/02/2015 08:11 PM, Jose Martinez wrote: On 06/02/2015 10:08 PM, Celejar wrote: On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:46:17 +0100 Lisi Reisz lisi.re...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( Ah, nostalgia. I learned linux using BasicLinux, which is still around, and will apparently run on a 386: http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasicLinux I still remember that incredible feeling, some many years ago, when I put the floppy into a Windows box, rebooted, insmod'd the relevant ethernet driver module, brought the network up, and had an actual working networked *nix terminal ;) Yeah, there's nothing like making an antique useful. I remember the days of the PDP-11 running *nixWhat I wouldn't give to come up with one of those old things!! Lisi Celejar My first programming class, back in 1976 was on a PDP-11. Those were the days. Bootstrap with physical toggle switches on the box to enter the binary code. Marc Boy do I remember those toggle switches!!! A few years back, I built a Z-80 based toy, and that was one of things I wanted t have...Toggle switches and lights on the front panel! Made it work too. -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556f59d1.2070...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On Wed, 3 Jun 2015 13:08:44 -0700 Larry Owens ow...@netptc.net wrote: And do you remember carrying your punched card deck from the keypunch room to the data center--and have someone bump into you and spill the cards on the floor? Which certainly taught you the hard way to draw one (or several) diagonal pencil or ink lines across the top of your card deck... Cheers, Ron. -- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they come to fight you, and then you win. -- Gandhi -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150603170841.033e8...@ron.cerrocora.org
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 07:04:13PM -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: And I will probably not use these system(s) on line much if any at all. So most of the security issues will fixed or not will not really be a problem in this situation. I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. -- JM If you need linux on a 386 that's where I started with DosLinux. I still have a copy if you're interested. As I recall no Xwindows just command line. Mike -- Why fit in when you can stand out? - Dr. Seuss -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150603145539.GA19315@playground
Re: Old Computers
Renaud writes: Which certainly taught you the hard way to draw one (or several) diagonal pencil or ink lines across the top of your card deck... Or to number your cards so that you could simply run a scrambled deck through the card sorter. -- John Hasler jhas...@newsguy.com Elmwood, WI USA -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/874mmotqd6@thumper.dhh.gt.org
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 19:04 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. You could always try mining Bitcoin: http://www.righto.com/2015/05/bitcoin-mining-on-55-year-old-ibm-1401.html But I guess none of your systems are quite as old? ;) -- Cheers, Sven Arvidsson http://www.whiz.se PGP Key ID 6FAB5CD5 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Old Computers
On Jun 1, 2015, at 5:56 PM, Jose Martinez jomartinez...@gmail.com wrote: Hey guys, I'm about to be blessed with several old PC computers. By old I mean that some of them will not even have CDROM drives on them. I will probably tear them all down, mix-and-match parts and make the best system(s) I can from those parts. This is something I've done before, so the technical aspects are not a problem. I expect to use the resulting system(s) solely for play purposes to experiment with and delve into the depths of the system programming primarily for educational purposes. If any of you remember Scotty from the original Star Trek series and how he spent his off/vacation time pouring over tech manuals and playing with gadgets, well that's me! The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. I just can't find it within me to throw out what is, other than being old, a good usable computer system. I appreciate any information y'all can send my way. Welcome to the club, Jose! I do the same sort of thing for old Macintosh PowerPC machines. It’s actually kind of fun… (for certain definitions of “fun” -: ) You may find a distro targeted at so called “embedded” computers that will run on your hardware. Do a Google search for “debian linux embedded x86”. That seems to have some useful pointers. Top of the list is “emdebian”. The Emdebian page says: Embedded_Debian Change of status As of July 2014, Emdebian Grip stopped receiving updates to the unstable-grip distribution. Updates to the jessie-grip suite stopped some months before that. The last stable release of Emdebian Grip was 3.1 based on Debian GNU/Linux 7.1 Wheezy. There will be no further updates of Emdebian Grip. This information is retained for historical purposes but can be removed when wheezy is finally removed from the Debian mirrors (which will happen at some point before the next stable release after Debian Jessie 8.0). So you can at least get a version of Wheezy that might work on your hardware. Jessie looks to be not in the cards. I guess porting Systemd to minimal hardware was just too hard… )-: A little further down the list is Voyage Linux, which is a Debian derivative. I’ve used Voyage. Some of the things they do to make it fit in a very small footprint are quite creative! I learned a lot when I was doing that work. Good luck, and have lots of fun! Rick -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/a0dfe854-b601-438e-b297-beea11a9e...@pobox.com
Re: Old Computers
I'm about to be blessed with several old PC computers. By old I mean that some of them will not even have CDROM drives on them. Dont throw them away before considering that some may be given a second life, as dedicated firewall boxes, using the IPCop or IPFire distributions. Cheers, Ron. -- Toute institution qui ne suppose pas le peuple bon, et le magistrat corruptible, est vicieuse. -- Maximilien Robespierre -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org -- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150602044317.28395...@ron.cerrocora.org
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 02:01 PM, Ric Moore wrote: On 06/02/2015 11:07 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Geoworks!! It ought to fly on a 486! Ric Apparently you have to have DOS to run GeoWorks. I see instructions for installing on DosBox, but that implies that you have a running Linux!Also, something I read on one of the sites I just looked up indicates that the video is going to be kinda crude. I will be interested in seeing if anyone follows up on this! --doug -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556df5a2.1010...@optonline.net
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 11:07 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Geoworks!! It ought to fly on a 486! Ric -- My father, Victor Moore (Vic) used to say: There are two Great Sins in the world... ..the Sin of Ignorance, and the Sin of Stupidity. Only the former may be overcome. R.I.P. Dad. http://linuxcounter.net/user/44256.html -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556def69.8050...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 12:41 PM, Gary Dale wrote: On 02/06/15 12:49 PM, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 17:37:01 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall I was thinking more along the lines of really old Debian releases, something that would be contemporary with the hardware. In view of the kernel problem, you are obviously right. But in general, I would rather use something that is security updated. So I was trying to think of other possibilities. Lisi On the other hand, the old releases were updated for all the security problems known at the time. They may well be immune to newer issues introduced after the release became unsupported and there may be few people trying attacks that haven't worked on atypical computers in over a decade. And I will probably not use these system(s) on line much if any at all. So most of the security issues will fixed or not will not really be a problem in this situation. I see I've sparked a pretty good discussion on the list. I sure appreciate all the advice/information it will come in very handy when I actually have the systems in hand. -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556e447d.9050...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:46:17 +0100 Lisi Reisz lisi.re...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( Ah, nostalgia. I learned linux using BasicLinux, which is still around, and will apparently run on a 386: http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasicLinux I still remember that incredible feeling, some many years ago, when I put the floppy into a Windows box, rebooted, insmod'd the relevant ethernet driver module, brought the network up, and had an actual working networked *nix terminal ;) Lisi Celejar -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150602230819.a2a119d760b48c95dfa9f...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 10:08 PM, Celejar wrote: On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:46:17 +0100 Lisi Reisz lisi.re...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( Ah, nostalgia. I learned linux using BasicLinux, which is still around, and will apparently run on a 386: http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasicLinux I still remember that incredible feeling, some many years ago, when I put the floppy into a Windows box, rebooted, insmod'd the relevant ethernet driver module, brought the network up, and had an actual working networked *nix terminal ;) Yeah, there's nothing like making an antique useful. I remember the days of the PDP-11 running *nixWhat I wouldn't give to come up with one of those old things!! Lisi Celejar -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556e7054.2030...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 06/02/2015 08:11 PM, Jose Martinez wrote: On 06/02/2015 10:08 PM, Celejar wrote: On Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:46:17 +0100 Lisi Reisz lisi.re...@gmail.com wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( Ah, nostalgia. I learned linux using BasicLinux, which is still around, and will apparently run on a 386: http://distro.ibiblio.org/baslinux/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasicLinux I still remember that incredible feeling, some many years ago, when I put the floppy into a Windows box, rebooted, insmod'd the relevant ethernet driver module, brought the network up, and had an actual working networked *nix terminal ;) Yeah, there's nothing like making an antique useful. I remember the days of the PDP-11 running *nixWhat I wouldn't give to come up with one of those old things!! Lisi Celejar My first programming class, back in 1976 was on a PDP-11. Those were the days. Bootstrap with physical toggle switches on the box to enter the binary code. Marc -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556e8687.7090...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) -- Cheers, Sven Arvidsson http://www.whiz.se PGP Key ID 6FAB5CD5 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, Jun 02, 2015 at 08:32:01AM +0200, Petter Adsen wrote: ... Look around and see if you can find a copy of fvwm 1.24r - I ran that for years on a 386 with little RAM without any problems. Version 2 is a little heavier, but you can compile it yourself and leave out options you don't need, like pixmap support for the titlebars etc. Petter I still use icewm as my favorite window manager (no gnome). (Though I installed xfce4, too, I hardly ever use that WM, since I don't like those tiring mouse operations as xfce4 offers but limited key handling.) Install: packages: icewm, icewm-common Drawback: you have to edit the config files in /etc/icewm/* to your taste: menu preferences programs toolbar (After this is done, your individual configuration will hardly need another touch, if you saved your altered files for system updates.) To start icewm, have /etc/xinit/xinitrc execute two commands: exec /etc/profile exec icewm-session To limit boot to text mode, disable any display manager files: xdm, gdm .. in /etc/init.d, start X via startx -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20150602100248.ga5...@fok02.laje.edewe.de
Re: Old Computers
On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/201506021607.21462.lisi.re...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req LostSon signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Old Computers
On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-06-01 at 21:14 -0500, Jose Martinez wrote: Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) I think even squeeze would be a challenge (maybe a fun one though!) when it comes to ram and disk space. But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( Lisi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/201506021646.17481.lisi.re...@gmail.com
RE: Old Computers
From: lisi.re...@gmail.com Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 16:46:17 +0100 On Tuesday 02 June 2015 16:28:30 lostson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 14:55:51 Sven Arvidsson wrote: I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall Lisi How about Tiny Core Linux http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req Needs i486. :-( The Linux kernel itself requires 486, it doesn't build for 386 anymore. IIRC it's because it uses the CMPXCHG instruction to implement locking, and that instruction isn't available on 80386. Regards, Arno
Re: Old Computers
On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall I was thinking more along the lines of really old Debian releases, something that would be contemporary with the hardware. -- Cheers, Sven Arvidsson http://www.whiz.se PGP Key ID 6FAB5CD5 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Old Computers
On Tuesday 02 June 2015 17:37:01 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall I was thinking more along the lines of really old Debian releases, something that would be contemporary with the hardware. In view of the kernel problem, you are obviously right. But in general, I would rather use something that is security updated. So I was trying to think of other possibilities. Lisi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/201506021749.43875.lisi.re...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 02/06/15 12:49 PM, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Tuesday 02 June 2015 17:37:01 Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Tue, 2015-06-02 at 16:07 +0100, Lisi Reisz wrote: But there's always vintage operating systems for vintage computers :) I thought of DSL. But it needs an i486. :-( http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall I was thinking more along the lines of really old Debian releases, something that would be contemporary with the hardware. In view of the kernel problem, you are obviously right. But in general, I would rather use something that is security updated. So I was trying to think of other possibilities. Lisi On the other hand, the old releases were updated for all the security problems known at the time. They may well be immune to newer issues introduced after the release became unsupported and there may be few people trying attacks that haven't worked on atypical computers in over a decade. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556dead2.4090...@torfree.net
Re: Old Computers
On Mon, 01 Jun 2015 23:39:15 -0400 Gary Dale garyd...@torfree.net wrote: On 01/06/15 10:10 PM, Martin Read wrote: On 02/06/15 01:56, Jose Martinez wrote: The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en says: However, Debian GNU/Linux jessie will not run on 486 or earlier processors. Despite the architecture name i386, support for actual 80386 and 80486 processors (and their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) and Squeeze (r6.0) releases of Debian, respectively. The Intel Pentium and clones, including those without an FPU (Floating-Point Unit or math coprocessor), are supported. The Intel Quark is not supported, due to hardware errata. Where you will also find problems is with various distros that supposedly support Pentiums but that require PAE, which is missing from a lot of them. Another huge issue is finding a windowing system that will be lightweight enough to run in the memory older Pentium-based computers are likely to support. Look around and see if you can find a copy of fvwm 1.24r - I ran that for years on a 386 with little RAM without any problems. Version 2 is a little heavier, but you can compile it yourself and leave out options you don't need, like pixmap support for the titlebars etc. Petter -- I'm ionized Are you sure? I'm positive. pgp2FPl92cVKe.pgp Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Old Computers
On 06/01/2015 09:10 PM, Martin Read wrote: On 02/06/15 01:56, Jose Martinez wrote: The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en says: However, Debian GNU/Linux jessie will not run on 486 or earlier processors. Despite the architecture name i386, support for actual 80386 and 80486 processors (and their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) and Squeeze (r6.0) releases of Debian, respectively. The Intel Pentium and clones, including those without an FPU (Floating-Point Unit or math coprocessor), are supported. The Intel Quark is not supported, due to hardware errata. Hmm, that is a little disappointing. But, I can probably run Squeeze. Nothing like stone knives and bear skins!:-) -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556d117e.7010...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 01/06/15 10:10 PM, Martin Read wrote: On 02/06/15 01:56, Jose Martinez wrote: The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en says: However, Debian GNU/Linux jessie will not run on 486 or earlier processors. Despite the architecture name i386, support for actual 80386 and 80486 processors (and their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) and Squeeze (r6.0) releases of Debian, respectively. The Intel Pentium and clones, including those without an FPU (Floating-Point Unit or math coprocessor), are supported. The Intel Quark is not supported, due to hardware errata. Where you will also find problems is with various distros that supposedly support Pentiums but that require PAE, which is missing from a lot of them. Another huge issue is finding a windowing system that will be lightweight enough to run in the memory older Pentium-based computers are likely to support. Debian is good starting point but you may want to start with as minimal an install as possible and only add things as you need them. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556d2563.5000...@torfree.net
Old Computers
Hey guys, I'm about to be blessed with several old PC computers. By old I mean that some of them will not even have CDROM drives on them. I will probably tear them all down, mix-and-match parts and make the best system(s) I can from those parts. This is something I've done before, so the technical aspects are not a problem. I expect to use the resulting system(s) solely for play purposes to experiment with and delve into the depths of the system programming primarily for educational purposes. If any of you remember Scotty from the original Star Trek series and how he spent his off/vacation time pouring over tech manuals and playing with gadgets, well that's me! The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. I just can't find it within me to throw out what is, other than being old, a good usable computer system. I appreciate any information y'all can send my way. -- JM -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556cff20.5060...@gmail.com
Re: Old Computers
On 02/06/15 01:56, Jose Martinez wrote: The question is, will jessie install and run on these old systems? If not, can I still get a debian distro that will? I expect that the processors on at least one of them will be at least i386 or better, so I also expect that jessie will install and run, but that my main problem will be with drivers for the legacy peripherals. https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en says: However, Debian GNU/Linux jessie will not run on 486 or earlier processors. Despite the architecture name i386, support for actual 80386 and 80486 processors (and their clones) was dropped with the Sarge (r3.1) and Squeeze (r6.0) releases of Debian, respectively. The Intel Pentium and clones, including those without an FPU (Floating-Point Unit or math coprocessor), are supported. The Intel Quark is not supported, due to hardware errata. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/556d10a9.1000...@zen.co.uk
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
Ron Johnson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/10/08 10:09, Kent West wrote: Curt Howland wrote: Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. This is why I don't use a login manager (like [kwxg]dm); as long as the system doesn't switch to a graphical VT (or is it any VT?), you're able to Shift-PgUp/Dn through the boot messages after logging in. Since booting up is a rare thing, the extra step of typing startx to get X started is an extremely minimal price to pay for living without a graphical login manager. Amen, brother. Except of course when you have a multi-seat system and only monitor 0 has VT's. Hugo -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 07:44:40PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:21:42AM +1200, Chris Bannister wrote: Or wonder if you will be stuck at a 2.6.22 kernel because you have a nvidia MX400 because m-a only works with the nvidia-glx from unstable if you try installing the 2.6.24 kernel which has migrated down to Lenny. So you find yourself with an nvidia card not supported by the Etch pre-compiled modules with no modules that work for Lenny for your card? At the moment, it seems so. Everythings fine with the 2.6.22 kernel, I am hoping there may be some sort of legacy nvidia-glx which has support for the nvidia MX400. -- Chris. == The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but its not the most interesting. - Dr Who. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 11:45:39AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/10/08 11:32, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:17:06AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? I don't know why frankly. It was obviously a local delivery vehicle and intended to carry some weight. This particular one was originally purchased by the USAF and used as a flight-line ambulance. They may have had special gearing requirements for it. It has a top end around *Really* smooth acceleration for critically-wounded patients? nah, geared that low, as soon as you start to slip the clutch/release the gas, the thing practically screeches to a stop for the shift into second. You have to really know how to clutch (and double clutch) to drive the thing. Or really, really, really fat pilots? that's why they make the planes out of alumin[i]um.. to allow for fat pilots. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? If you've got any pictures of it, throw them on the web. I'd love to see it. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA We want... a Shrubbery!! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH/b7xS9HxQb37XmcRAlgGAJ9YAgCNZ+ZY1w+Qaq0/womXfZBTawCbBfxL tLQmGhGckSQj5yMYS2yJSPE= =Q6Gt -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:17:06AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? If you've got any pictures of it, throw them on the web. I'd love to see it. I did pull stumps with our family's old 72 Dodge Dart (225 slant 5). Did it too with my 1981 volvo (did everything with that beast). Also with my 79 T-bird: engine and AOD out of an 86 CrownVick but left the diff alone: mileage like a Honda Civic on the highway (7 L/100 Km), mileage like a sherman tank in the city. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 My first Linux install was on a 386-33. I still have the steel full-sized AT case around here somewhere... The hardest thing was figuring out the monitor's frequencies for Xwindows, since at that time they were not autodetected what so ever. In one way it was quite nice: I could read all the boot messages. It was easy to see where there were problems, if any. Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. With one motherboard upgrade (K5-133) that same system ran for 8 years as my http/smtp/dns server, until some spammer used my domain as their fake from address and overwhelmed the poor thing. It was time for it to come down anyway... oh well. Curt- - -- Treason! http://blog.mises.org/archives/007926.asp -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iQEVAwUBR/4hNS9Y35yItIgBAQIGBAf5AcOqoZva9D/IizmDmdgpbwKnl3MRrlQ+ N/LWu+viiLxsvuBU9mYAXjc5atNuDFV+B6DlZlTNvkMZkI8S3cYxi3ErQm5c/Qbd C5cObaRh0vLq9EWJLHdt908LfA/aV8zLUtprvc/Jdkk1c3RzetDsnnUuzL75kk2E MQp5UrDhs6vagao8vI2H+wmS87b+E9gkGJxvfs15fGcUMB04Ks1ayClshDdTpUOd zidK2u+MgCmSA6mw3MhktkYq7jMdB+4q+rCiKV7oiHKLfqNnHL301aNKXeVY5gEJ kZeMVFW4Su1aYcmIrUDmUjxw2uEXguiyn03gq3qwF8eaikZgf127pw== =0q5C -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
Curt Howland wrote: Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. This is why I don't use a login manager (like [kwxg]dm); as long as the system doesn't switch to a graphical VT (or is it any VT?), you're able to Shift-PgUp/Dn through the boot messages after logging in. Since booting up is a rare thing, the extra step of typing startx to get X started is an extremely minimal price to pay for living without a graphical login manager. -- Kent -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/10/08 10:09, Kent West wrote: Curt Howland wrote: Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. This is why I don't use a login manager (like [kwxg]dm); as long as the system doesn't switch to a graphical VT (or is it any VT?), you're able to Shift-PgUp/Dn through the boot messages after logging in. Since booting up is a rare thing, the extra step of typing startx to get X started is an extremely minimal price to pay for living without a graphical login manager. Amen, brother. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA We want... a Shrubbery!! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH/i+xS9HxQb37XmcRAtVMAJ9lz+iuhiqXlFWTrV3Ud47ffJxi9ACgvH0w 0GpizQwv5/XrmWF6FRc84C8= =iTXA -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:16:15AM -0400, Curt Howland wrote: .. Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. I just never reboot... then I don't have to worry about those... And with some of these kernel now soft rebooting, I never have to sit through a memory test or wonder whether the powersupply will come back to life. ;) A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:17:06AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? I don't know why frankly. It was obviously a local delivery vehicle and intended to carry some weight. This particular one was originally purchased by the USAF and used as a flight-line ambulance. They may have had special gearing requirements for it. It has a top end around 45 mph, which is fairly in line with flight-line speed limits. I don't even bother with first gear because it's just ridiculous. Nothing quite like revving that engine all the way and having the little old pedestrian lady still beat you around the corner. If you've got any pictures of it, throw them on the web. I'd love to see it. I think I've got some around here. If not I'll snap some and put them up. A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/10/08 11:28, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:16:15AM -0400, Curt Howland wrote: .. Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. I just never reboot... then I don't have to worry about those... And with some of these kernel now soft rebooting, I never have to sit Soft rebooting? through a memory test or wonder whether the powersupply will come back to life. ;) - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA We want... a Shrubbery!! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH/kNAS9HxQb37XmcRAv3qAJ9g9y7GrgwJEdQver1Z0JWNQSpggACgoH0r fWJANjh6ULtQk7OfvWvqLTA= =SbX9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/10/08 11:32, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:17:06AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? I don't know why frankly. It was obviously a local delivery vehicle and intended to carry some weight. This particular one was originally purchased by the USAF and used as a flight-line ambulance. They may have had special gearing requirements for it. It has a top end around *Really* smooth acceleration for critically-wounded patients? Or really, really, really fat pilots? 45 mph, which is fairly in line with flight-line speed limits. I don't even bother with first gear because it's just ridiculous. Nothing quite like revving that engine all the way and having the little old pedestrian lady still beat you around the corner. If you've got any pictures of it, throw them on the web. I'd love to see it. I think I've got some around here. If not I'll snap some and put them up. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA We want... a Shrubbery!! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH/kQzS9HxQb37XmcRAvRVAJ4tR4Ez3PKbWZ5/tv/8SFbx9FeEmQCgt9nH /yoo24AHoDxmbGvN2x93oyE= =4yni -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 11:41:37AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/10/08 11:28, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:16:15AM -0400, Curt Howland wrote: .. Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. I just never reboot... then I don't have to worry about those... And with some of these kernel now soft rebooting, I never have to sit Soft rebooting? I've seen this for a while now. When I call `sudo reboot`, it doesn't post the motherboard or anything, just brings the system down and then the kernel restarts. It's entirely possible that it's my fault though. I've played with kexec a little bit, and it seems very similar to this. The physical hardware doesn't reboot, just the system. I don't even get a grub menu... Now I haven't exhaustively tested this to see what's going on, so all I have is random anecdotal things. hmmm... now I'm inspired to try it again and see what happens... but I hate to lose tha precious precious uptime ... A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thursday 10 April 2008 06:54:31 am Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:17:06AM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/09/08 23:14, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: [snip] I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... Gee, ya think uber-torque is why they did that? If you've got any pictures of it, throw them on the web. I'd love to see it. I did pull stumps with our family's old 72 Dodge Dart (225 slant 5). Did it too with my 1981 volvo (did everything with that beast). Also with my 79 T-bird: engine and AOD out of an 86 CrownVick but left the diff alone: mileage like a Honda Civic on the highway (7 L/100 Km), mileage like a sherman tank in the city. I was seriously surprised with the power my old 95 Kia Sportage had. 4 banger, but got 147HP on the State of Oregon DEQ dynos at Hillsboro. It once pulled a Ford Explorer out of a drainage ditch, and with the help of another jeep, got a bus moving again on an icy day. -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 10:16:15AM -0400, Curt Howland wrote: My first Linux install was on a 386-33. I still have the steel full-sized AT case around here somewhere... The hardest thing was figuring out the monitor's frequencies for Xwindows, since at that time they were not autodetected what so ever. In one way it was quite nice: I could read all the boot messages. It was easy to see where there were problems, if any. Also, I think the boot messages used to be more meaningful. Its too bad our dmesg now isn't like OpenBSD's. They don't ask for lscpi or anything, its all right there in the dmesg. Now, the boot messages scroll off so fast I can't read them, and the log doesn't pick up all of them. Some times I really miss being able to read them as they went by, especially when I see something Gee, that doesn't look right... and poof it's gone. If you have two boxes, link them by serial cable. Have them set to send their console output both to the serial port and to the display. Once booted, have them open the port and log the output. As long as you don't boot both machines at the same time, you should have everything. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 04:22:06PM -0700, Paul Johnson wrote: I was seriously surprised with the power my old 95 Kia Sportage had. 4 banger, but got 147HP on the State of Oregon DEQ dynos at Hillsboro. It once pulled a Ford Explorer out of a drainage ditch, and with the help of another jeep, got a bus moving again on an icy day. Old and Kia in the same sentence? How old are we talking? Also, don't confuse HP with torque. Given enough time and a come-along, you yourself could pull an Explorer out of a ditch. When I travel up north in winter, I keep a come-along and 20 feet of logging chain in the back of the car. Used it a few times on my driveway when I lived up there. Since the bus was on an Icy day, thank the tires for good traction with kudos to the driver (you) for a light touch on the throttle so you didn't just polish your tire prints. As for motorize OOMPH, as the saying goes, there's no replacement for displacement. That old 79 Tbird with the 86 engine is a case in point. In 1986 (at least here in Canada), Ford did away with their big block engines (e.g. the 400 c.i.) but still needed the oomph so they took the small-block 351 (5.8 L) Windsor engine, added all the typical after-market things (e.g. roller rockers) and tweaked it for torque. With nice long headers on it you came up with the magic numbers of 500 + 500 (HP and Ft-Lb torque). Plunk that in a sporty car designed for a 1979 302 (5.0 L), add an Edlebrock carb and intake, and you get great mileage with a light foot but floor it and (once the tranny kicks down and the other two barrels open up) you get 0-60 in under 4 seconds on a very heavy car with all the emission controlls functional. Too bad the body was all rusted out. I think T-birds now weigh less than 2000 lbs and have a 3 L engine; all gearing. Oh well. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Tue, Apr 08, 2008 at 09:28:40PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 01:23:07PM -0400, Brian McKee wrote: slot wore out (don't ask me how, because I don't know). At the end, I had to keep a rubberband pulling that daughter board at just the right angle, or the thing would lock up and not boot. Worked like that for years. Aren't you the one that said using a VT520 to access a P-II to ssh into an Athlon64 to read mail was rube-goldberg? Thanks Mr. Pot. Kettle. Why yes indeed I was Mr. Kettle. Kind of you to notice. And thank you both - I'm having trouble typing between giggling fits. :-) No, Andrew was using the rubber band to keep his daughter from wiggling so (nah, I won't finish that joke, anyway it wasn't __giggling__ fits. :) No no, sorry Doug, but rubber bands are reserved for securing daughter *boards* not daughters. I only use du(ct|ck) tape for securing the children. /me runs from the SPCA^h^h^h^hCPS... A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:48:18PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: so now we can twiddle our thumbs, go on random OT rants and rest assured that lenny will be out any time. When's the next utnubu due out? That always brings a few interesting ones. Maybe we should run some more google trends charts? We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. Or wonder if you will be stuck at a 2.6.22 kernel because you have a nvidia MX400 because m-a only works with the nvidia-glx from unstable if you try installing the 2.6.24 kernel which has migrated down to Lenny. -- Chris. == If you are not subscribed, ask to be CC'd as the Policy of this list is to reply to the list only. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 09:21:42AM +1200, Chris Bannister wrote: Or wonder if you will be stuck at a 2.6.22 kernel because you have a nvidia MX400 because m-a only works with the nvidia-glx from unstable if you try installing the 2.6.24 kernel which has migrated down to Lenny. So you find yourself with an nvidia card not supported by the Etch pre-compiled modules with no modules that work for Lenny for your card? Ouch. Look for a different card? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 09:34:39AM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: No no, sorry Doug, but rubber bands are reserved for securing daughter *boards* not daughters. I only use du(ct|ck) tape for securing the children. /me runs from the SPCA^h^h^h^hCPS... If the wiggle fits. (I think its much funnier than if I hadn't snipped what came before, IMHO). If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). Augh! Red Green on d-u?!? There's got to be a law against that! :-P -- Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. (*)http://blinkynet.net/comp/uip5.html Linux Counter #80292 - -http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.htmlPlease, don't Cc: me. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:58:14AM +0200, s. keeling wrote: Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). Augh! Red Green on d-u?!? There's got to be a law against that! :-P Naw. The Possomobile's (is that it, I don't often see the show) computer box died so instead of buying a new one, he runs Debian on an old VAX to run the engine since all the emission controlls are connected with VAXum hoses. This is why the Possomobile is a van; Vax don't fit in lesser vehicles. Of course, the ignition module was replaced by a SPARC running Debian. The bumpers are a little rusty. He has new Itanium ones... :) :) Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Wednesday 09 April 2008 04:42:13 pm Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 09:34:39AM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: No no, sorry Doug, but rubber bands are reserved for securing daughter *boards* not daughters. I only use du(ct|ck) tape for securing the children. /me runs from the SPCA^h^h^h^hCPS... If the wiggle fits. (I think its much funnier than if I hadn't snipped what came before, IMHO). If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). The US got The Red Green Show on PBS (our version of the CBC, except PBS and NPR were both privatized in the 90s and have gone downhill from there), though the movie didn't get theatrical release here (instead, it ran in segments in a 3 hour timeslot as a Red Green themed beg-a-thon gimick for PBS, instead of without interruption as it probably would have back when our public broadcaster was still public). We also got Brian Jacques Redwall from Teletoon on PBS here on Saturday mornings for a while; they ran a padded version to fit in a 28-minute commercial-free timeslot. After the original program but before the credits, PBS injected educational games themed on the episode's content, or documentary shorts about the show's production (in a style similar to How It's Made) or interviews with the author or various key production crew members (in a style that I'm sure Mike Nelson could make dozens of This is Spin̈al Tap jokes to). Another Teletoon gem got picked up by easily the least-likely American outlet possible... we got the entire run of Clone High on MTV here. Guuh, it's too bad Al Gore bought and gutted CBC Newsworld International (Became Current TV, an attempt at a teenage-oriented cable news network) and Paul Allen did the same to MuchMusicUSA (became Fuse, stopped playing decent music, started airing non-music content)... At least my delivery truck has a sirius radio now... I think I spend most time listening to CBC Radio 1 and Radio 3, BBC Radio 1 and World Service, Iceberg (a Canadian alternative Internet radio station syndicated on Sirius) and CBC Bandeparte (CBC's French-language rock station, I maybe understand one word out of five, but I just like the sound of most of the music). It's too bad CRTC doesn't have any influence on what goes over the air in the US, Canada's got the better entertainment... -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Wednesday 09 April 2008 06:25:01 pm Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:58:14AM +0200, s. keeling wrote: Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). Augh! Red Green on d-u?!? There's got to be a law against that! :-P Naw. The Possomobile's (is that it, I don't often see the show) computer box died so instead of buying a new one, he runs Debian on an old VAX to run the engine since all the emission controlls are connected with VAXum hoses. This is why the Possomobile is a van; Vax don't fit in lesser vehicles. My delivery van is of the same vintage and model as that De Soto Tradesman. As far as I can tell, the only difference between the Dodge and De Soto Tradesman vans is the De Soto had daytime running lights standard per Canadian law (I kinda want the daytime running light module out of that van to put in mine, since you have to have headlights on in the rain in the states, and it rains a lot in Cascadia and I sometimes forget if it's not nighttime). -- Paul Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Wed, Apr 09, 2008 at 06:53:08PM -0700, Paul Johnson wrote: On Wednesday 09 April 2008 06:25:01 pm Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 02:58:14AM +0200, s. keeling wrote: Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If before we were kettle and pot, now that duct tape is an issue, are we Red and Green (do other places get the Red Green show?). Augh! Red Green on d-u?!? There's got to be a law against that! :-P Naw. The Possomobile's (is that it, I don't often see the show) computer box died so instead of buying a new one, he runs Debian on an old VAX to run the engine since all the emission controlls are connected with VAXum hoses. This is why the Possomobile is a van; Vax don't fit in lesser vehicles. My delivery van is of the same vintage and model as that De Soto Tradesman. I have a 1965 International Harvester (aka Cornbinder) Metro-Mite delivery truck. It's so cool. Geared so low in first, you could pull stumps with it... A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 01:23:07PM -0400, Brian McKee wrote: slot wore out (don't ask me how, because I don't know). At the end, I had to keep a rubberband pulling that daughter board at just the right angle, or the thing would lock up and not boot. Worked like that for years. Aren't you the one that said using a VT520 to access a P-II to ssh into an Athlon64 to read mail was rube-goldberg? Thanks Mr. Pot. Kettle. Why yes indeed I was Mr. Kettle. Kind of you to notice. And thank you both - I'm having trouble typing between giggling fits. :-) No, Andrew was using the rubber band to keep his daughter from wiggling so (nah, I won't finish that joke, anyway it wasn't __giggling__ fits. :) Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:26:41PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/06/08 20:48, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, running OS/2, IBM Fortran compiler (the reason I bought a computer in the first place), WordPerfect 4.?, and AutoCad 11. Warp 3 was a wonderful OS. Presentation Manager was *really* slick, and formatting floppies while downloading a file at 14.4KBps was something that Win 3.1 could only dream of, and Win93 could only barely accomplish when the moon was full and the stars in proper alignment. I never had Warp 3. I started with version 1.1 on the 386 and kept up with the service packs. I convinced IBM to give me 2.? when I had to get the 486. BTW, those IBM floppies from ~1990 still work. OS/2 was my first OS. I had to learn Dos and Lotus-1-2-3 for school (on their computer), but did everything at home on both computers on OS/2. The 486 came with win 3.1. I only used it for a game that needed it (Harpoon!) while the DOS games ran OK under OS/2 (but better under dos). Once I had a Zip drive, I just installed Win onto the Zip drive (it didn't know it could do it) and booted dos with a floppy. It was certainly a bit of a switch to go from OS/2 to Potato (via a short stint with RH 4-something). DOS-based BBSs still mandated you have one PC per modem, but OS/2 was capable enough to run 6 or 8 modems at full speed. I only had a 2400 modem but eventually move up to a 28.8. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:46:15PM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani wrote: Since we're off topic and talking about low end machine. I don't know if any of you guys have heard of this new linux distro on the block called slitaz. http://www.slitaz.org/en/ Very small distro...fits in a 24.8 mb live cd. Can run entirely on RAM as low as 64MB. Linux kernel 2.6.24.2 and all the good stuff. I wish i could try it out but I only have old PPC machines lying around...never owned an x86... Personally, I wouldn't bother. You can only do so much with Linux on a low-end machine. OpenBSD (and to be fair NetBSD) run so much better, and there are scripts out to make a liveCD for OpenBSD. My only gripe with NetBSD is comparing how long security fixes take to come out (if they ever do): Debian and FreeBSD tend to come out within a day of each other. OpenBSD, if its vulnerable at all, given the changes they made to the compiler, takes about a week (but there are never new bugs created by a fix), and NetBSD may take a month or more. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 07:17:49PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:48:18PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. hmmm... good question. It doesn't seem to me like there's been as much change between etch and lenny, relative to the sarge-etch transition. Of course, being all sid for my human-facing machines, I haven't used an etch-like system in a while now... The big problem was the memory requirements with bash hitting swap on the 486 in Etch but not Sarge. I wonder how much memory Lenny's installer will need; the P-II only has 64 MB. my household server here (bigmomma, .5TB) started out on an old pentium 90 system with the cpu on a daughter board. over time, that slot wore out (don't ask me how, because I don't know). At the end, I had to keep a rubberband pulling that daughter board at just the right angle, or the thing would lock up and not boot. Worked like that for years. Aren't you the one that said using a VT520 to access a P-II to ssh into an Athlon64 to read mail was rube-goldberg? Thanks Mr. Pot. Kettle. :) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:46:15PM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani wrote: Since we're off topic and talking about low end machine. I don't know if any of you guys have heard of this new linux distro on the block called slitaz. http://www.slitaz.org/en/ hey that's cool. I love little distros like that. This kind of stuff will keep old low-end machines running for ever. And, having put debian on a couple of lower power Via Epia machines, I can say there's definitely a place for this stuff on low power modern hardware as well. Heck even on high end hardware... the responsiveness of these small, ram-only systems is awesome. Very small distro...fits in a 24.8 mb live cd. Can run entirely on RAM as low as 64MB. Linux kernel 2.6.24.2 and all the good stuff. I wish i could try it out but I only have old PPC machines lying around...never owned an x86... can't you emulate x86 in a virtual machine? A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 08:03:34AM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 07:17:49PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:48:18PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. hmmm... good question. It doesn't seem to me like there's been as much change between etch and lenny, relative to the sarge-etch transition. Of course, being all sid for my human-facing machines, I haven't used an etch-like system in a while now... The big problem was the memory requirements with bash hitting swap on the 486 in Etch but not Sarge. I wonder how much memory Lenny's installer will need; the P-II only has 64 MB. I'm sure this has been discussed before... I wonder how much of that bash overhead was just the improved tab-completion scripts and other add-ons like that... meh. my household server here (bigmomma, .5TB) started out on an old pentium 90 system with the cpu on a daughter board. over time, that slot wore out (don't ask me how, because I don't know). At the end, I had to keep a rubberband pulling that daughter board at just the right angle, or the thing would lock up and not boot. Worked like that for years. Aren't you the one that said using a VT520 to access a P-II to ssh into an Athlon64 to read mail was rube-goldberg? Thanks Mr. Pot. Kettle. Why yes indeed I was Mr. Kettle. Kind of you to notice. Pot A ;-P signature.asc Description: Digital signature
[VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: so now we can twiddle our thumbs, go on random OT rants and rest assured that lenny will be out any time. When's the next utnubu due out? That always brings a few interesting ones. Maybe we should run some more google trends charts? We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, running OS/2, IBM Fortran compiler (the reason I bought a computer in the first place), WordPerfect 4.?, and AutoCad 11. It died after two years. That second summer was very hot and we didn't have air-conditioning. The system-board cracked across like a cookie-sheet in the oven. I don't know if the problem was the board or the plastic case. Room temp was over 40 C with about 90% humidity. This happend just as I was entering the summer before final year in nursing and I was writing many essays and doing stats research (and the only one in the class doing it in Fortran instead of the stats package that required MS something). I replaced the 386 with my IBM 486 ValuePoint 6492X5C, 16 MB ram (now 32MB). This box still runs like a charm but gagged on Etch and runs OpenBSD just fine. My P-II was given to me full of cat hair. The people who gave it to me needed a box with USB. I read the manual for the board and popped out the cover on the back of the case and lo and behold there are two functioning USB ports on the MB. :) The PSU is flaky, the CPU fan bearing is noisy (hostname= rocky, as in a gravel truck). It does take large drives so is a good second box but it only has 64 MB ram and isn't reliable (too much heat damage?) to bother adding more. Will it run Lenny well? Any way, I wonder if any on-topic stuff has come up? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 6, 2008 at 6:48 PM, Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, My first Linux box was very similar. SLS it ran, 120 meg (and very flaky ST-1144A, later had to replace it with a Maxtor that lasted some 7 years or so). 4 megs of RAM, later upgraded to 8. The ST was a nightmare and I kept having to copy things elsewhere to make sure there weren't any bad spots, which there were - the drive probably didn't last a year or two - on the outside. Box was a Packard Hell 386sx/16. Any way, I wonder if any on-topic stuff has come up? Well, you've mentioned Etch, Lenny, and Debian, so this must be on-topic. ;) Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 09:48:18PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: so now we can twiddle our thumbs, go on random OT rants and rest assured that lenny will be out any time. When's the next utnubu due out? That always brings a few interesting ones. Maybe we should run some more google trends charts? We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. hmmm... good question. It doesn't seem to me like there's been as much change between etch and lenny, relative to the sarge-etch transition. Of course, being all sid for my human-facing machines, I haven't used an etch-like system in a while now... I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, running OS/2, IBM Fortran compiler (the reason I bought a computer in the first place), WordPerfect 4.?, and AutoCad 11. my household server here (bigmomma, .5TB) started out on an old pentium 90 system with the cpu on a daughter board. over time, that slot wore out (don't ask me how, because I don't know). At the end, I had to keep a rubberband pulling that daughter board at just the right angle, or the thing would lock up and not boot. Worked like that for years. Any way, I wonder if any on-topic stuff has come up? not yet A signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 04/06/08 20:48, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: so now we can twiddle our thumbs, go on random OT rants and rest assured that lenny will be out any time. When's the next utnubu due out? That always brings a few interesting ones. Maybe we should run some more google trends charts? We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, running OS/2, IBM Fortran compiler (the reason I bought a computer in the first place), WordPerfect 4.?, and AutoCad 11. Warp 3 was a wonderful OS. Presentation Manager was *really* slick, and formatting floppies while downloading a file at 14.4KBps was something that Win 3.1 could only dream of, and Win93 could only barely accomplish when the moon was full and the stars in proper alignment. DOS-based BBSs still mandated you have one PC per modem, but OS/2 was capable enough to run 6 or 8 modems at full speed. It died after two years. That second summer was very hot and we didn't have air-conditioning. The system-board cracked across like a cookie-sheet in the oven. I don't know if the problem was the board or the plastic case. Room temp was over 40 C with about 90% humidity. This happend just as I was entering the summer before final year in nursing and I was writing many essays and doing stats research (and the only one in the class doing it in Fortran instead of the stats package that required MS something). I replaced the 386 with my IBM 486 ValuePoint 6492X5C, 16 MB ram (now 32MB). This box still runs like a charm but gagged on Etch and runs OpenBSD just fine. My P-II was given to me full of cat hair. The people who gave it to me needed a box with USB. I read the manual for the board and popped out the cover on the back of the case and lo and behold there are two functioning USB ports on the MB. :) The PSU is flaky, the CPU fan bearing is noisy (hostname= rocky, as in a gravel truck). It does take large drives so is a good second box but it only has 64 MB ram and isn't reliable (too much heat damage?) to bother adding more. Will it run Lenny well? Any way, I wonder if any on-topic stuff has come up? Doug. - -- Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson LA USA We want... a Shrubbery!! -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFH+YZhS9HxQb37XmcRAt3MAJ48TmsewhXrrcUhb41ey73GP6IKTQCgpkqv rc5D+cKpYWa+Ss5ajA+424E= =oQti -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [VERY OT while waiting for Lenny?] reminiscing on old computers
On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 21:48:18 -0400 Douglas A. Tutty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 06:18:51PM -0700, Andrew Sackville-West wrote: On Sun, Apr 06, 2008 at 08:23:20PM -0400, Douglas A. Tutty wrote: so now we can twiddle our thumbs, go on random OT rants and rest assured that lenny will be out any time. When's the next utnubu due out? That always brings a few interesting ones. Maybe we should run some more google trends charts? We could reminise about my 486 that doesn't run Debian anymore. I wonder if Lenny will run on my P-II or if that's another box for OpenBSD. I remember my 386. It was an IBM PS/2 model 70-A21. It came with the then-unherd of 120MB hard drive, MCA bus, and I put 4 MB ram into it, running OS/2, IBM Fortran compiler (the reason I bought a computer in the first place), WordPerfect 4.?, and AutoCad 11. It died after two years. That second summer was very hot and we didn't have air-conditioning. The system-board cracked across like a cookie-sheet in the oven. I don't know if the problem was the board or the plastic case. Room temp was over 40 C with about 90% humidity. This happend just as I was entering the summer before final year in nursing and I was writing many essays and doing stats research (and the only one in the class doing it in Fortran instead of the stats package that required MS something). I replaced the 386 with my IBM 486 ValuePoint 6492X5C, 16 MB ram (now 32MB). This box still runs like a charm but gagged on Etch and runs OpenBSD just fine. My P-II was given to me full of cat hair. The people who gave it to me needed a box with USB. I read the manual for the board and popped out the cover on the back of the case and lo and behold there are two functioning USB ports on the MB. :) The PSU is flaky, the CPU fan bearing is noisy (hostname= rocky, as in a gravel truck). It does take large drives so is a good second box but it only has 64 MB ram and isn't reliable (too much heat damage?) to bother adding more. Will it run Lenny well? Since we're off topic and talking about low end machine. I don't know if any of you guys have heard of this new linux distro on the block called slitaz. http://www.slitaz.org/en/ Very small distro...fits in a 24.8 mb live cd. Can run entirely on RAM as low as 64MB. Linux kernel 2.6.24.2 and all the good stuff. I wish i could try it out but I only have old PPC machines lying around...never owned an x86... AMit -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
What can be put into .mplayer.conf to disable video entirely so just the sound track plays? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
On 10/6/07, Jude DaShiell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What can be put into .mplayer.conf to disable video entirely so just the sound track plays? $ mplayer -vo null something.mpg will play the audio but suppress the video. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What happens if you run cdck to check the quality of the DVD? I installed cdck from the deb repo and ran it. A lot of errors. There are a lot: ! unable to read sector 195007, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195008, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195009, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195010, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195203, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195204, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195205, reason: Input/output error This may be because of new forms of copy protection they are adding to DVDs. A DVD player navigates through the disc based on the structures in the VOB files, so it can be told to skip blocks on the disc. If you try to read the disc as a UDF filesystem, you'll hit the blocks that the VOB navigation skips. The copy protection works by making those blocks bad so you cannot do a block by block copy of the disc. Can you turn the DVD into an iso or something file and play from hard disk? How do I do this? mkisofs? Or can I use mencode or dvdbackup? What do you recommend? If you get a recent version of vobcopy (http://vobcopy.org/), it should be able to make a copy of the disc which can then be played off the HDD. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
On Thu, Oct 04, 2007 at 05:15:53PM +1000, Cameron Hutchison wrote: Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ! unable to read sector 195204, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195205, reason: Input/output error This may be because of new forms of copy protection they are adding to DVDs. A DVD player navigates through the disc based on the structures in the VOB files, so it can be told to skip blocks on the disc. If you try to read the disc as a UDF filesystem, you'll hit the blocks that the VOB navigation skips. The copy protection works by making those blocks bad so you cannot do a block by block copy of the disc. How do I do this? mkisofs? Or can I use mencode or dvdbackup? What do you recommend? If you get a recent version of vobcopy (http://vobcopy.org/), it should be able to make a copy of the disc which can then be played off the HDD. Why can't mplayer read the disk as if its playing the video but output to a file that can be played later? Can VLC? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Dnia 02/10/07 08:13,Amit Uttamchandani napisał: [] I tried out the settings but it still doesn't seem to help. I get a bunch of these errors repeatedly. a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! 5.666 ct: 0.295 138/135 13% 5% 100.0% 127 0 1% a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling I'm guessing this is due to the speed. Hi, It looks weird - CRC errors? Is the DVD scratched badly? I'm afraid I cannot help you; maybe you should try asking on some mplayer forums/groups? BTW, have you tried the kaffeine already? It worked better than mplayer with DVDs for me. Kind regards, Michal R. Hoffmann -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 09:27:51PM +0100, MRH wrote: Dnia 02/10/07 08:13,Amit Uttamchandani napisa??: I tried out the settings but it still doesn't seem to help. I get a bunch of these errors repeatedly. a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! 5.666 ct: 0.295 138/135 13% 5% 100.0% 127 0 1% a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling It looks weird - CRC errors? Is the DVD scratched badly? I'm afraid I cannot help you; maybe you should try asking on some mplayer forums/groups? What happens if you run cdck to check the quality of the DVD? Can you turn the DVD into an iso or something file and play from hard disk? Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Hi,
It looks weird - CRC errors? Is the DVD scratched badly? I'm afraid I
cannot help you; maybe you should try asking on some mplayer forums/groups?
BTW, have you tried the kaffeine already? It worked better than mplayer
with DVDs for me.
Kind regards,
Michal R. Hoffmann
Yeah the CRC errors looked weird. The DVD isn't scratched badly. And it also
plays fine on a regular dvd player. So yeah I'm not sure what could be the
issue.
I was going to try out kaffeine and checked out its dependencies...it uses xine
as the backend so I tried installing xine and using that to play dvds. No
luck...still didn't work.
Also I checked out /var/log/messages and these lines seem to be suspect:
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: ATAPI device hdc:
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: Error: Illegal request -- (Sense key=0x05)
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: 28 00 00 02 6c b0 00 00 02 00 00 00 00 00 00
00
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 635584
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: hdc: command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady
SeekComplete Error }
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: hdc: command error: error=0x54 { AbortedCommand
LastFailedSense=0x05 }
Oct 3 21:01:29 debian kernel: ide: failed opcode was: unknown
--
Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
What happens if you run cdck to check the quality of the DVD? I installed cdck from the deb repo and ran it. A lot of errors. There are a lot: ! unable to read sector 195007, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195008, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195009, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195010, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195203, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195204, reason: Input/output error ! unable to read sector 195205, reason: Input/output error Can you turn the DVD into an iso or something file and play from hard disk? How do I do this? mkisofs? Or can I use mencode or dvdbackup? What do you recommend? THanks. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Hey there, Thanks for the reply. ~/.mplayer/config: vo=xv ao=alsa cache=4096 (but this was due to playing some .avi from network drive) autoq=6 vf=pp framedrop=yes I tried out the settings but it still doesn't seem to help. I get a bunch of these errors repeatedly. a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! 5.666 ct: 0.295 138/135 13% 5% 100.0% 127 0 1% a52: error at resampling a52: CRC check failed! a52: error at resampling I'm guessing this is due to the speed. Thanks. -- Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Hey guys, Trying to use mplayer to watch DVDs but it is quite slow. A lot of artifacts and buffering. Quite unwatchable. I have been tweaking a few settings here and there but I thought I'd ask from more experience users out there. A few settings that I am using now, * -vo xv * -cache 8192 This is on a old PowerBook G4 500MHz PPC w/512MB RAM. I would think this should be fast enough to watch DVDs? Also, I am not running any other major applications in the background. Any suggestions? Thanks. -- Amit Uttamchandani [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
On Mon, Oct 01, 2007 at 01:16:51AM -0700, Amit Uttamchandani wrote: Hey guys, Trying to use mplayer to watch DVDs but it is quite slow. A lot of artifacts and buffering. Quite unwatchable. I have been tweaking a few settings here and there but I thought I'd ask from more experience users out there. A few settings that I am using now, * -vo xv * -cache 8192 This is on a old PowerBook G4 500MHz PPC w/512MB RAM. I would think this should be fast enough to watch DVDs? Also, I am not running any other major applications in the background. I would guess that a lot depends on the xorg video driver and the video card in that box. If it will do any hardware mpeg conversion/scaling/whatever then it should be fast enough but if it doesn't then you're relying on the CPU to do all the work and it may not be up to it. I've never run an apple so I don't know about the drivers. What does top show? If any of the resources are heavily used it could induce latency that shows up as video artifact. Doug. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Recommended MPLAYER config for old computers
Dnia 01/10/07 09:16,Amit Uttamchandani napisał: Hey guys, Trying to use mplayer to watch DVDs but it is quite slow. A lot of artifacts and buffering. Quite unwatchable. I have been tweaking a few settings here and there but I thought I'd ask from more experience users out there. A few settings that I am using now, * -vo xv * -cache 8192 This is on a old PowerBook G4 500MHz PPC w/512MB RAM. I would think this should be fast enough to watch DVDs? Also, I am not running any other major applications in the background. Any suggestions? Thanks. Hi, I used to watch DVDs on my old 2x350PII 512MB RAM with VooDoo3, which seems to be slower than yours. Well, it wasn't perfect, but wasn't too bad. I must admit that kaffeine was much more useful with DVDs though. Sometimes it crashed, but it worked better with DVD menus etc. And it seemed to me that it played more smoothly too. Debian sid. In mplayer (AFAIR) I used the following options ~/.mplayer/config: vo=xv ao=alsa cache=4096 (but this was due to playing some .avi from network drive) autoq=6 vf=pp framedrop=yes Kind regards, Michal R. Hoffmann -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
