[Techtalk] Do I even think about upgrading it?

[caitlynmaire at earthlink.net]

Hi, everyone,

While I dont expect many (if any) of y'all have the same hardware, I'd
bet I'm not the only one keeping some old hardware alive in these, ahem,
interesting economic times.  I suspect anyone with similarly ancient
boxen about can give me good advice :)

In addition to the fairly ancient Toshiba Libretto 50CT I described in
my post questioning whether or not to send bug reports, I have an even
older Libretto 20CTA.  It, too, is the size of a paperback book, and
weighs under two pounds (840 grams), and dates from the dim and distant
past (1996).  It's a 486DX4-75 with 16MB of RAM and an 810MB hard drive.
 It currently is running Red Hat Linux 6.0 (with many patches and
upgrades, 2.2.20 kernel) quite happily.  However, there are newer
versions of apps that are lightweight enough to run on this box, but not
without major other upgrades of the underlying libraries.  Hence the
question...

I can't upgrade the memory beyond 20MB, and it isn't worth the cost of
replacing the 12MB memory card with a 16MB card, even assuming I can
still find one.  Assume that the specs on this box won't change.  I can
squeeze a usable build of RH 7.2 into 810MB.  I can build the system in
my Libretto 50CT, as swapping drives isn't hard.  

The thing is, if I do that, will it even run in a usable way on my
Libretto 20CTA?  How much slower is RH 7.2 than 6.0?  Is X the issue, or
the kernel, or the filesystem, or????  Can I make this work?  Do I even
think about this upgrade?

If I do this, what about taking the next step to 7.3?  How much more
space does it demand?  How slim can I make it?  

Comments?

All the best,
Caity