Charles Angelich wrote: > > I wonder how many 80486s out there have only 8 megs?
Many low-end 486s (I have several) have eight 30pin SIMM slots. 1mb 30pin SIMMs are cheap and plentiful on the secondhard market, so it's easy to take one of those 486s to 8mb. However, going beyond 8mb is much more difficult because larger 30pin SIMMs (suitable for those 486s) are much harder to find. > 80486 laptops might have been only 8 megs but the > '486 desktop I have here has 16 megs in it I certainly agree that it is much better for a 486 to have more RAM (particularly for X). However, if possible I would like machines with 8mb RAM to be able to run BL2. > Not being sarcastic here but people with cable modems > may not be the same people who would bother to keep a > '486 operational for very long (if they even have one)? BL2 is not intended *only* for 486s. Many users of BL1 have quite powerful computers. What I want to avoid is shutting out 486s with 8mb RAM. > even though I do have enough network cards to setup > an intranet I have never bothered. You've surprised me Charles. I would have though that someone like you would have got into networking in a big way (particularly since you have the hardware just sitting there). Building my network gave me a great sense of satifaction and I learned a lot. > My machines die off at the rate of one per year Aren't some of your machines *really* old? The only 486 that ever died on me was when I plugged the power connector the wrong way round (duh). > >Note: people with NICs not in BL2 will still be able to > >use it. They simply download a new kernel from Slack71 > >(the bare.i bzimage has support for all NICs). And, as now, > >they also need to download the correct Slack71 module for > >their NIC. > > Not sure I understand what you mean in the above paragraph? > The BL2 won't network unless they also download additional > modules of SlackWare71, BL2 will come with six NIC modules (and the kernel will be compatible with those six only). Users with other NICs will need to get a module and new kernel from Slack71. Keep in mind that I'm just starting to built BL2. Everything is subject to change. Perhaps BL2 will support seven NICs or perhaps only five. It all depends on how things come together. However, these things develop their own momentum. Once I have compiled that kernel, I'll be moving on to other things and it will probably become the final kernel. So anybody with a strong preference for a NIC (or other feature) should get in now. Cheers, Steven To unsubscribe from SURVPC send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe SURVPC in the body of the message. Also, trim this footer from any quoted replies. More info can be found at; http://www.softcon.com/archives/SURVPC.html
