[Techtalk] Do I even think about upgrading it?

[caitlynmaire at earthlink.net]

Hi, everyone,

This has turned into a wonderfully informative thread.  Thanks!

Dave North wrote:

> I am a Debian fan, especially on old hardware, partly because it's
> somewhat easier to run newer packages with an older kernel, and there
> are also a lot of deb folks doing it.

I have nothing against Debian, but I have copies of Vector 2.5 and 2.0
here, as well as copies of every RH back to 4.0 save 6.1.  I don't have
high speed access at the moment, though Keith could probably download
Woody for me at work this week.  I may just ask him to do that.  I
should give it a good look. 

I've gotten to the point of knowing RPM pretty well inside and out.  I
know it's a dissenting opinion around here, but I happen to like RPM. 
Also, RH packages are available for just about everything, and where
they aren't I can make them easily enough on the PII 350 that's currenly
running Red Hat 7.3/KDE 3.0.1 in Hebrew.  (Raven:  it's simple and
straightforward to setup a Hebrew Linux system.  KDE 3.0.1 has wonderful
Hebrew support.)  I really don't want to compile much of anything on a
486 if I can avoid it unless it's quite small.

>  Of course, it's the only distro whose first name is a woman's.

Half of the name is a woman's, unless you consider Debian two names :)

> In particular, there are a lot of ways to tweak a setup using the
> 2.2 kernel

The thing is, I do want a 2.4.x kernel.  The support for the Libretto's
weird hardware is complete in the 2.4.x series, and requires patching
under 2.2.  Also, some of the latest (and wonderful) utilities written
for these little beasties seem to require newish libraries.  If I don't
have to sacrifice speed I am better off with something like Vector Linux
2.5 (2.4.18 kernel as of the last update) than with an old Red Hat build
for that reason.

Yeah, I've decided to upgrade it one way or another if I can make it run
decently.

XFree86 4.x, OTOH, is where I fear I am likely to get hurt when compared
to 3.3.x.  I already know that 4.2.0 doesn't work well with the C&T
chipset in the Libretto 50CT, hence my downgrade to 4.1.0.  I'm not sure
how it will to with the Cirrus Logic CL-GD7548 chipset in the Libretto
20CTA.  I do know that under XFree86 3.3.1 linear addressing hangs X,
which forces me to run it at 8bpp.  It should support 16bpp with that
chipset at 640x480.  Hence my desire to at least
try a newer X.  That or Metro X, which I do have here.

> That, of course, doesn't surprise me at all. As Alan's example points
> out, I'm sure you can do wonders with RedHat on just about any machine
> -- if you know what Alan does (and it's sort of part of your job,
> wink*nod).

I, of course, do not quite have the skills or knowledge of Alan Cox. 
The words "yawning chasm" or "huge gulf" are gross understatements of
the difference.  I am quite happy to use tools he has been gracious
enough to provide though (see later discussion of sysgen).

Telsa wrote:
> 
> That said, I asked him about RH on the very small PC110 (a 486SLC
> with 20Mb RAM and a tiny tiny screen which will do X in 640x480:
> it's actually only barely larger than an iPaq and comes with lots
> of funky Japanese characters on the keys).

Very cool machine.  The first and second generation Librettos (20
through 70) are the second smallest systems that will run Linux.  A
PC110 is the absolute smallest.  If I ever see one at a reasonable price
on the used market I will certainly snatch it up.

FWIW, my Libretto 20CTA has a Kanji keyboard with those funky Japanese
characters as well.  I recently saw a Libretto 30CT with a Hangul
(Korean) keyboard.  Very cool.
> 
> He said he cheats :) He has a tool called sysgen which installs
> minimal RH 7.2 setups onto a hard disk: you put the disk into a
> slightly more useful box than the PC110, run 'sysgen', and put
> the disk back into the PC110.

That may be the ticket for me :)  If the PC110 can happily run 7.2, so
can my Libretto 20 :)  Methinks I may try that first before Vector or
Debian.
> 
> (I didn't know any of this!) 

Thank Alan for sharing he information.
> 
> That provides a basic RH 7.2 with X, rvxt and Sylpheed and then he
> adds XFce for a pretty X which doesn't munch the RAM he has(n't)
> got.

XFCE and IceWM are both great for lightweight WMs.  I think IceWM may be
slightly lighter/faster.  I was quite annoyed when Red Hat dropped it
from their distro.  Fortunately, I can always grab a fresh copy from
SourceForge.

BTW, thanks for reminding me of something else.  I need to contact the
developers of IceWM and see if I can contribute all the icons I've
converted to it's requirements.

> And XFce is at http://www.xfce.org

It's also on the Games and Utilities CD for 7.2/7.3 :)
> 
> I asked him about Caity's box and he said a 2.4.18-ac kernel
> (or any kernel with rmap) tends to outperform 2.2 on a low-memory
> box. It uses more memory, but swaps the right stuff out when it's
> under load. He's actually written a short guide to Linux and low
> powered boxes, but clearly he hasn't put it up anyway :) 

I wish he would publish that.  Thank him for the information.  That, and
sysgen, give me more incentive to try a stripped down RH build.  Telsa,
has he gotten 7.3 to work on the PC110?
> 
> I shall send it separately to techtalk if people are interested:
> it's what the limitations for Linux on little or old boxes are 
> and how to get around them.

That would really be fantastic.  I'm working on a facelift and update of
my website and would like to publish that in the new Linux stuff section
if you don't have a more appropriate place to put it.

Octal wrote:

> Pardon my interruption, but Alan's sysgen utility which Telsa refers
> to lives at
> ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/Software/Install/sysgen-0.01.tar.gz
> if you're interested. If not, please accept my humble apologies and
> pretend this never happened. :-)

Thank you!

Hopefully I'll have time to get this going tomorrow evening.  I'll let
y'all know how it turns out.

All the best,
Caity