Linux Q's

From: Aaron Christopher Finney <A_Finney_at_wfi-inc.com>
Date: Mon Dec 7 14:15:05 1998

On Mon, 7 Dec 1998, Russ Blakeman wrote:

> Just to refresh my memory on Linux since I'm just now getting into
> looking at it, just exactly what machines work well with it, and with
> what versions/vareities for each? I have tons of machines from IBM 5170
> AT's, PS/2's of all sorts, other 286 and 386 machines, etc and I'm
> looking at possibly selling off the useful ones that will use Linux as
> cheap as I can to get some room to walk around here.
>
> Any suggestions greatly appreciated.
>

Look over www.linux.org, some good info there. Many of these machines are
only supported by special ports of Linux (like MCA ps/2's) and they may
not run the most current packages by RedHat/Debian/Slackware/etc.
Certainly XWindows support will be lacking on anything less than a 386.
RAM is also a major concern. Linux is *comparatively* fast; remember that
it is more complete and robust than WinNT/95/98, but you still need the
hardware to run it.

One thing you might consider is putting Minix on some of those older, slow
machines and trying to market them as research curiosities to CS students.
It should work fine on a 286 with >40meg HD...

Cheers,



Aaron C. Finney Systems Administrator WFI Incorporated
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"UNIX is an exponential algorithm with a seductively small constant."
Received on Mon Dec 07 1998 - 14:15:05 GMT