I picked up a Panasonic CF-41 with 16 MB Ram (maybe expandable to 32MB) and an 80486 processor (and VGA!!). I'm not sure, I think it originally came with WIN95 but currently has WIN98- the CD drive isn't recognized. I still need to figure out if its a Mark 1 or whatever.
Anyway, I finished playing with an older desktop and WIN98 (had a lot of fun with it- it worked good- gave it, a monitor and a printer away). Onward and... well, sideways
In researching my lastest treasure, I keep seeing linux, tuxedos, and red party hats mentioned. I don't really know much about them. I could leave WIN98 on it or try WIN98SE but... never used linux.
From quick looks, these OS's appear too advanced for my machine. I MIGHT upgrade memory- but LOL! 32MEG!! LOL! Any recommendations for which of the multitude of linux versions might be best?
How about a linux message board with good FAQ's and back posts? ...maybe a linux for dummies type thing. My searches have only turned up "dead" boards or total "techie" sites. If anyone has experience with the CF-41, I would really appreciate it.
Bob
PS: I'm on a 2 year old laptop w/ XP. I don't need another real computer. The Panasonic is a for fun project. It is not required that it make sense. When it works and I'm done, I'll probably give it away and find a....????
Wow. With a 486, you could try DOS - it really kicked butt on 486's. (Kidding, kidding. Sorta.)
You can go have a look at slackware.com. Slackware was pretty popular at one time. And it's in English, which comes in handy. Many of the other sites I saw are in Bulgarian or Turkish - which doesn't matter much once you know the material, but not so great for learning.
Slackware states:
CPU requirements: One or more 32 or 64 bit x86 CPUs (with one or more cores), which can be AMD, Intel, or any other fully PC-compatible x86 CPUs. RAM: 64MB is required to install, and 1GB or more is recommended for best performance (especially if using a graphical desktop on the X Window System). Disk space: almost 5GB (4.8GB) is required for a complete install, and more is always better. Supported hard drives: Drivers are built into the kernel for all IDE, SATA, hardware RAID, and SCSI controllers supported by the included Linux kernel.
I'd probably file that under 'why bother?' If you want to mess around with linux, you can more easily set up your real machine to dual boot linspire. But who am I to spoil your fun? The for dummies books became popular right around the 486 era. Thing is, Linux was never considered to be a for dummies OS. Check oreilly.com. It just isn't a blow and go OS. You get stuck knowing stuff. People (in general) hate that. Red Hat tried hard to simplify and popularize the whole thing, but the general consensus was, "You still have to know stuff." So there you are. To know or not know - that is the $64 question.
Slackware also sells its own books, but Amazon or ebay could be your friend. Some people actually sell those books you can't even give away at a garage sale, lol.
Don't know about your hardware, that could be a bit of a problem, but the only "ready for mere mortals" Linux distro, as far as I can tell, is Ubuntu. You still might have to get under the hood a bit, but I am running it on two dirt-cheap eMachines PCs, both three or four years old, and it is great, very little need to tinker with anything. I run Gnome desktop on one and KDE desktop on the other, it is simply a matter of personal preference, they both are great. You should not be afraid of the command line however, it is your friend! Learn a few commands to list directories, change directories, create and remove directories, and then you can get by very nicely, with just two other commands - "sudo" (Super User Do) and "apt-get" (fetch and install a ton of software from the repositories). I am proud to say that our house is now a Windows-free zone!
Any time spent on "Wasting" is time spent learning.My first PC was $50. The DW got it. I read that you should remove "Unneeded programs".
I ended up deleting the "OPERATING SYSTEM FILES". Who knew?
THEN I STARTED TO COLLECT AND READ REPAIR MANUALS.
I Ubuntu on the side now and it's a hoot.
It's free, unlike MS, so give it a try.
It helps to go back to Linux in the era before it got bloated.
I've put Slackware 3.2 on a 4MB 386, with X11 and twm, full C and X11 programming tools, but no pseudo-Windows desktop environments. That was on a 80MB hard drive, loading from a couple dozen floppies. This was used as a development machine for X-windows applications. If Linux will fit on 4MB, it will fit on a 486 with four to eight times the memory.
We also installed and used System V and BSD 4.2 on 4MB 386 and 486 machines, so working in a small size isn't necessarily a Linux thing.
Most of the current distributions are larger, even the "lightweight" packages often looking for 128-256 MB and 3-4 GB of disk space. But you can be careful about how much you install.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. I've got my search narrowed and some sites to browse through. I really like free but there were so many . Next time I'm at the library (dial up at home ) I'll download a few linux versions.
I had also thought of DOS. I started with it... worked good on a 286 too. Naw, I'll save that for a TRS-80
Funny using it as a car PC came up... I had to try it right away- heck, $7.00 is sorta pricey for laptop! I turned it on in my truck and I could actually SEE the display. Much better than my HP Pavillion. ...and I saw several gps programs free for download...
One more question-
On the back there is a port labeled "AT BUS". I'd thought it was a SCSI port, I don't have a connector to try, but there's no SCSI controller built in. Is this some kind of a proprietary expansion dock doohickey or a normal thing I just haven't noticed before? There seems to be plenty of pins for AT slot and hardware lists a 3Com "Modem PC Card" in addition to the Hayes PCMCIA modem.
I don't really know much about them. I could leave WIN98 on it or try WIN98SE but... never used linux.
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) I'll download a few linux versions.
