IBM 5120 (was Re: My First S-100 System)

From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_conman.org>
Date: Mon Oct 14 00:40:00 2002

It was thus said that the Great Tothwolf once stated:
>
> On Mon, 14 Oct 2002, Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner wrote:
>
> Hrm, this is getting a little OT isn't it?

  Well, most 486 systems are on topic, and the Linux 2.0 kernel is about
half-way to being on topic so ...

> > Hmmm, Linux 2.0 will run fine on such a system, although getting it
> > installed (personally I use RedHat 5.2) is a bit tricky; I did get it
> > installed on a laptop with 120M harddrive and 4M RAM (although it took
> > the better part of a day and wasn't for the feight of heart---details if
> > anyone wants them).
>
> I have 486 boxen running both 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, which seem to work much
> more efficiently than the ancient 2.0 kernels. As far as distributions go,
> Debian seems to be better suited for installs on small hard drives, but I
> managed an install of RedHat on a 120MB drive once (and I swore I'd never
> do it again).

  I tried compiling a 2.4 kernel for one of my systems (static compilation,
no modules---I tend to forgoe modules for servers) and it was (with the same
settings) about twice the size as the 2.0 kernel I'm currently running. My
486 systems are a bit tight with memory so that is a concern for me.

  And yes, I did a RedHat on 120MB (okay, more like 112MB---had to use 8M
for swap 8-) but like I said, it wasn't something I'd like to repeat any
time soon.

> The 2.2 and 2.4 Linux kernels support IRQ sharing, so it should work "OK"
> so long as you don't attempt to run the shared ports at very high baud
> rates.

  What about the hardware?

  -spc (Thought the PC hardware didn't allow sharing of IRQs ... )
Received on Mon Oct 14 2002 - 00:40:00 BST