[Techtalk] A distro for old machines...

Alvin Goats agoats at compuserve.com
Fri Nov 28 13:04:47 EST 2003


I run a mix of machines at home for different purposes and have run
linux from the days of the first 386's.

Slackware has some optimizations built in for low memory and can be
configured down to 8M RAM. Some older versions of software run faster
for older hardware than the newer, and on old machines the speed is very
noticeable. 

Some of the "bloatware" things like kde and gnome are loaded with neat
stuff, but on slow and tiny memory machines gets incredibly slow due to
swapping to disk. Lean, no frills window managers are best.

I currently run a 486DX-33MHz with 16M RAM as a simple file server. I
have run 486DX-66 with 32M RAM and X-windows with satisfactory
performance with fvwm95 and up to 4 applications at a time. StarOffice
5.1 and ApplixWare 4.4.2 ran fine at this level of machine. kde was much
too slow, gnome was faster and that was with Slackware 7.1 (2.2.16
kernel). 100M swap space minimum recommended.


I have a couple Pentiums: a P133 and a Toshiba Laptop with a P150. Both
have 32M RAM and run faster. More RAM makes things much nicer. If you
can get it, I would recommend 128M, 64M minimum. Of course the more RAM
the better! ;)  kde and gnome are more acceptable, but both really need
more RAM than I have on them. Java based software tends to run slow,
probably due to the low memory. Netscape 4.78 runs acceptably, but
Netscape 6.0+ does not. This is one of the "older software works better"
items.


If you are going to use any kernels newer than 2.2.16, I would recommend
recompiling the kernels. Most of the old hardware doesn't have things
like USB, and unless you plan on adding a card, remove it from the
kernel. Compile to use low memory and to use modules. Any module not
needed will be dropped, saving memory and improving speed/response.
Strip all things not needed for the machine from the kernel. 

Likewise, recompile X-windows after you have installed the new, stripped
down kernel. This will help as well, as you will have eliminated some
functions that would otherwise be compiled in with X-windows. Smaller
binaries run faster and consume less memory.


The distro's are much alike in adding new things that are built into new
computers, Slackware included. The kernels become quite large and are
now getting to the point they won't fit on a single floppy. If you strip
off what isn't needed or wanted, you can trim the kernel down in size to
fit on a floppy again. Read this as: "smaller kernels operate faster due
to lower overhead". This is part of why there's an "embedded linux"
effort: they need the barest minimum of things to function for a 
narrowly defined functionality and can do so in "real time". 


Now, I run Slackware, so I speak from what I know and have used. My
statements above SHOULD be applicable to the other distro's as well in
the general case. I leave what should be done with the other distro's to
those who know best: users of those distro's.


Good Luck!

Alvin


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