Best Linux distro for a 386

[Shambat]

I have gotten my hands on an old 386 laptop. I'd like to run Linux on it, and get some use out of it. What distro should I go with? Minix? DSL? Slackware? Not sure what all the specs of the machine are, but it's safe to say that it is old.

Thanks.

<edit>
Thanks for the replys! A bit more searching has found me a P100 laptop instead. This might expand my options. I doubt this system is a power house so my questions still stands
</edit>

 

[halw]

I'm able to run Mepis 3.4 on an AMD K6 w/192MB of memory.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I'd toss it. DSL might be able to run, but it still sounds painful.

 

[Nothinman]

I'm able to run Mepis 3.4 on an AMD K6 w/192MB of memory.

That's irrelevant, the main problem is that there were instructions added to the 586 that things like glibc use, so if libc and the kernel weren't targetted for the 386 they might contain instructions that will fail. I remember talk in some of the debian lists about dropping support for 386s but I don't know if it ever happened or not.

And Minix isn't Linux, but it might run on a 386.

 

[htne]

I would dump the 386. It is just not worth fooling with. An AMD K6/2 450 can easily be found for free through a little dumpster diving, and is orders of magnitude faster than any 386. Two years ago I tried to sell a notebook with a 75 mhz 486 cpu, and no one would offer me enough to make it worthwhile, so it went to the landfill -- and that was two years ago!

 

[Sunner]

A lightbulb will use about as much energy(provided it's not a low energy bulb) and be far more useful.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Sunner
A lightbulb will use about as much energy(provided it's not a low energy bulb) and be far more useful.

Heresy!!

It's just a low power computer that you can get for cheap.

Trouble is your probably not going to get Linux on it. You'd need to have a math copressor and need a very stripped down kernel that will fit into that thing's ram. You'd want to have at least 8 megs of ram if you have any hope of getting it running without a great deal of self hate.

Damn Small Linux is designed specificly for low resource machines, but I'd bet that even this is going to be slow for you.

Instead of Linux go with FreeDOS. http://www.freedos.org/

It's mostly compatable with MSDOS and it'll let you do some word proccessing and some networking (get a null modem serial cable, but beware not all serial cables are wired the same and there is no protection against damaging your system from a wrong type of cable) as well as play some old games.


There are lots of abandonware sites and you can have some fun with stuff like 'Ancient Art of War' and such.

 

[jhu]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Sunner
A lightbulb will use about as much energy(provided it's not a low energy bulb) and be far more useful.

Heresy!!

It's just a low power computer that you can get for cheap.

Trouble is your probably not going to get Linux on it. You'd need to have a math copressor and need a very stripped down kernel that will fit into that thing's ram. You'd want to have at least 8 megs of ram if you have any hope of getting it running without a great deal of self hate.

Damn Small Linux is designed specificly for low resource machines, but I'd bet that even this is going to be slow for you.

Instead of Linux go with FreeDOS. http://www.freedos.org/

It's mostly compatable with MSDOS and it'll let you do some word proccessing and some networking (get a null modem serial cable, but beware not all serial cables are wired the same and there is no protection against damaging your system from a wrong type of cable) as well as play some old games.


There are lots of abandonware sites and you can have some fun with stuff like 'Ancient Art of War' and such.

actually, you don't need a math coprocessor since the kernel can perform fp emulation. then again, a 386 won't be very useful for anything other than light server work. i did install redhat 5.0 on a 386 back in the day with x window and what not. i wasn't too impressed since i had a 486, which was much faster.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: drag

Originally posted by: Sunner
A lightbulb will use about as much energy(provided it's not a low energy bulb) and be far more useful.

Heresy!!

It's just a low power computer that you can get for cheap.

Trouble is your probably not going to get Linux on it. You'd need to have a math copressor and need a very stripped down kernel that will fit into that thing's ram. You'd want to have at least 8 megs of ram if you have any hope of getting it running without a great deal of self hate.

Damn Small Linux is designed specificly for low resource machines, but I'd bet that even this is going to be slow for you.

Instead of Linux go with FreeDOS. http://www.freedos.org/

It's mostly compatable with MSDOS and it'll let you do some word proccessing and some networking (get a null modem serial cable, but beware not all serial cables are wired the same and there is no protection against damaging your system from a wrong type of cable) as well as play some old games.


There are lots of abandonware sites and you can have some fun with stuff like 'Ancient Art of War' and such.

Note that I did say "useful"
Considering you can get Pentium boxes, and probably various P6 class systems as well, for free, the usefulness of a 386 is long gone imo.
Just get a Pentium box and install DOS on if you wanna play around with that stuff.

 

[daniel49]

Originally posted by: Shambat
I have gotten my hands on an old 386 laptop. I'd like to run Linux on it, and get some use out of it. What distro should I go with? Minix? DSL? Slackware? Not sure what all the specs of the machine are, but it's safe to say that it is old.

Thanks.

You make that sound like a good thing.
I really should give away that old 1st generation pentium I have in the closet...ahhh the art of procrastination.

 

[Shambat]

Thanks for the replys! A bit more searching has found me a P100 laptop instead. This might expand my options.

 

[h3l1x]

As you don't want to be doing a lot of compiling, I'd reccomend Debian. If you've got a high speed connection and a NIC in the lappy, the net install is easy.