Recent? Hmm, you'll struggle to find one I'd imagine - the kernel has gotten quite fat over the years with the huge array of features and hardware support that has been added. DSL (Damn Small Linux) used to be the one to go for, but looking at it now it wants 16Mb minimum ram.
Best bet for a 386 is to try and find one of those distributions designed for installation on an embedded device such as a router or wireless access point - some of those were built with the Geode chip (an x86 SOC).

In terms of supporting the 386 - technically they all should, unless compiled for Pentium, it's just that most will assume a far greater amount of RAM than ever possible with a 386.

Might have to custom build one.

As megatron said, DSL should definitely be able to run it. It has most of the old driver modules in kernel. I have a really old version of it somewhere and it was written "386 compatible" all over it 😀 Never tried it on less then P1 though, but it worked awesome on Socket 7 AMD K6-3 machine.

If you are a PRO linux user and you know your way about command line, grab an old version of knoppix or slackware. Slackware was running some reaaaaally old university machines some 20 years back. I still remember connecting to them via telnet 😁

sliderider:

here is a list I generated just for you.

http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Al … 6&status=Active

Perhaps there is one, that you like.

Perhaps this distro could be good for you. If you like a GUI/window manager for it

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=alinux

I honestly hope. That you will enjoy at least one of those distros.

elfuego wrote:

As megatron said, DSL should definitely be able to run it. It has most of the old driver modules in kernel. I have a really old version of it somewhere and it was written "386 compatible" all over it 😀 Never tried it on less then P1 though, but it worked awesome on Socket 7 AMD K6-3 machine.

If you are a PRO linux user and you know your way about command line, grab an old version of knoppix or slackware. Slackware was running some reaaaaally old university machines some 20 years back. I still remember connecting to them via telnet 😁

Last Slackware version that could run on a 386 was 8.1, and that's pretty ancient. That much I was able to find out.

WolverineDK wrote:

sliderider: […]
Show full quote

sliderider:

here is a list I generated just for you.

http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Al … 6&status=Active

Perhaps there is one, that you like.

Perhaps this distro could be good for you. If you like a GUI/window manager for it

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=alinux

I honestly hope. That you will enjoy at least one of those distros.

The problem with that is when they say i386 architecture, it doesn't necessarily mean that it will run on a 386. Most builds now when they say i386, they actually mean either a 486 or a Pentium minimum. Debian still claims to support the i386 architecture, but actual 80386 support was done away with in 3.1 Sarge. That's the big problem I'm having. Every decent build that claims i386 support, hasn't actually supported the 386 chip for years.

hi

i think you will either need to settle with
something old like slackware 8 else
go about it the much harder way with
linux from scratch (LFS) where you
do it ALL yourself should you want
modern tools that is.

i doubt if anything relatively recent supports
anything less than i486 and maybe not
even i486 any more in some cases.

i admit i have never even run linux on
a 386, the earliest for me being slackware 1
on a 486 (that came with a book and
lots and lots of floppy disks 😀.

btw, as someone who played with LFS about
10 years ago all i can say is that it can be
incredibly long winded at times but you
may learn from it but you would need
at least basic C and toolchain skills.

bye

hiya

i have done some simple investigation and all
i can say is that it would appear that there should
be no fundamental problem running a distro
that claims support for i486 on an i386. from
what i can see the only real difference is the
method the chips utilise their caches. one other
difference may be whether any particular build
automatically supports an emulated FPU. this
would be valid for some 486 chips also if you
don't have an FPU and tons of other non
intel architectures, try it and see.

i don't know enough to say if the hardware cache
would have any specific software requirement but
suspect not.

i also can't see any evidence that the i486 extended
the i386 instruction set but here i also may be
wrong. perhaps someone knows better?

what you may like to try is use a binary search
method of evaluation of linux on i386. ie. start
with something like slackware 8 and if it works
try out 11, if not step back to 4. a real issue
here would then be whether a distro has dropped
support for i486 and utilises pentium+ only
features as you go higher.

good luck.
bye

sliderider, maybe these people can help you 😀

http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/hyz8b/ … 2_has_a_floppy/

It's not Linux but have you thought about a BSD? I think NetBSD claims to run on all major known processors including the 386 - wasn't it a deritive of 386BSD originally?

sklawz wrote:

hiya […]
Show full quote

hiya

i have done some simple investigation and all
i can say is that it would appear that there should
be no fundamental problem running a distro
that claims support for i486 on an i386. from
what i can see the only real difference is the
method the chips utilise their caches. one other
difference may be whether any particular build
automatically supports an emulated FPU. this
would be valid for some 486 chips also if you
don't have an FPU and tons of other non
intel architectures, try it and see.

i don't know enough to say if the hardware cache
would have any specific software requirement but
suspect not.

i also can't see any evidence that the i486 extended
the i386 instruction set but here i also may be
wrong. perhaps someone knows better?

what you may like to try is use a binary search
method of evaluation of linux on i386. ie. start
with something like slackware 8 and if it works
try out 11, if not step back to 4. a real issue
here would then be whether a distro has dropped
support for i486 and utilises pentium+ only
features as you go higher.

good luck.
bye

The only thing I can think of is that they would drop the 386 (and 486SX) so they could dump the FPU emulation from the code and use the onboard FPU of the processors that would still be supported. They probably don't expect that there would be enough FPU-less systems still out there to keep FPU emulation in. Not many people bother installing an FPU in those systems because not much software actually used it back then.

This article might help you to decide what is the best linux distribution for you

Any luck, sliderider?

>without cutting out a lot of features

What kind of features?

Last time I tried to find a supported Linux for 486, things were grim. BIOS too old, and vanished driver support, particularly ISA ethernet. These days even on P1 I use obsolete distros. (Knoppix 3.1 most often. Sometimes 5.1 if 3.1 has trouble, but yeah it's slower.)

With BSD I looked into 486 firewalls more recently and noticed those had also stopped updating after a certain kernel.

Linux technically runs on all sorts of hardware, but for desktop use I find "the kernel moves on" is pretty true.

If you simply want the last Linux distro that did work on 386, then I'd agree look into old DSL versions.

--

Pop quiz: What's the oldest liveCD? I've got Corel 1.0 from 99.

I'm not even going to bother trying to install Linux on something that old. The distros from back then weren't as automated as they are today. It's too much work.I'm going to stick with DOS/Windows.

Ah. Yeah, good call. "Dependency Hell" is just words till you experience it.

pewpewpew wrote:

Ah. Yeah, good call. "Dependency Hell" is just words till you experience it.

I remember those... Man I needed like days to get the Java SDK running 🙁

sliderider: you could try to install BasicLinux on the 386

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BasicLinux

sliderider wrote:

I'm not even going to bother trying to install Linux on something that old. The distros from back then weren't as automated as they are today. It's too much work.I'm going to stick with DOS/Windows.

Na, don't do that man.. windows 3.1 is how far back you have to go to run worth a darn depending on your other hardware and memory... and finding drivers for any version on windows now can be a nightmare worse than looking for linux. I am going through the same thing now for putting together old machines had laying around for son who can't afford new computer. I know from my memory that is now fading terribly that I had this machine flying with both knoppix 3 and 4 something and linux mint, early version. There were actually a couple more that ran really well. Heck, one of the older live cd's, sorry I can't remember which one now, but all in and around those same time frame distro's, but it sang and was fantastic on the 386.

I am in the middle of the same thing now, just having to find some older distro's and download them and try.. it is way worth it than to go back to a windows 3.1 or trying to keep windows 8 from going blue screen every five minutes.

The live cd's are where to start, they are small and will tell you right away if it is worth getting a version to put on the hard drive. Heck, the live version would let you access all the hard drives and save files and stuff so it was just as good as being installed on the hard drive. Don't give up man, trust me... that old 386 will sing like it is a quad core on the right distro and no blue screens or trouble and it is free. did i mention the free part...

oh and you will always be able to find some old linux user who does not mind helping you and won't flame you to death for trying to ask for help like you would in the windows world. try getting someone to help you with windows 3.1 or 8, ouch, gonna be toast, 🤣...

We are on the same journey so let me know if you do find that magic number distro that hits the spot...

the bot

What an odd post! 😕

Surely the RAM on a 386 would be much, much too limited for any live CD, except maybe in text mode? (Assuming the 386 BIOS supports booting from a CD at all?)

An ancient version of Vector Linux might work.