Occasionally I log in to a Linux box from the GeoWorks 1.2 terminal program and use irssi or w3m....😀

On the XT Turbo.

I always wondered if you could do that from the ROM software in a Tandy 1200 portable is it? Be worth buying one just for that, instant on terminal. Maybe I'll burn an EEPROM sometime with similar functionality and stuff it in a desktop board. I guess technically I've got that in a Win CE handheld, but only gives me half a screen.

f34rthereaper wrote on 2021-09-18, 01:18:

I run debian 11 mate on an ibm thinkpad x31 with a 1.6ghz pentium m and i think 1gb of ram(maybe less). It works well enough, chugs a bit on some websites though. You can even watch youtube videos at 360p if your patient enough to wait for it to load

…which browser/player are you using to play said 360p videos?

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:12:

f34rthereaper wrote on 2021-09-18, 01:18:

I run debian 11 mate on an ibm thinkpad x31 with a 1.6ghz pentium m and i think 1gb of ram(maybe less). It works well enough, chugs a bit on some websites though. You can even watch youtube videos at 360p if your patient enough to wait for it to load

…which browser/player are you using to play said 360p videos?

You seem surprised for some reason.......
download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:29:

You seem surprised for some reason....... download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view […]
Show full quote

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:12:

f34rthereaper wrote on 2021-09-18, 01:18:

I run debian 11 mate on an ibm thinkpad x31 with a 1.6ghz pentium m and i think 1gb of ram(maybe less). It works well enough, chugs a bit on some websites though. You can even watch youtube videos at 360p if your patient enough to wait for it to load

…which browser/player are you using to play said 360p videos?

You seem surprised for some reason.......
download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view
download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view

And which ancient trashpile pick is this?

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:45:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:29:

You seem surprised for some reason....... download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view […]
Show full quote

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:12:

…which browser/player are you using to play said 360p videos?

You seem surprised for some reason.......
download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view
download/file.php?id=119874&mode=view

And which ancient trashpile pick is this?

You my want to check the date stamp. You probably haven't got there yet.

download/file.php?id=119873&mode=view

You really are an amusing fallow...😉

Ah yes, runs on pure douchery, and an answer from someone I didn’t ask. And a screenshot with no helpful information. I expect no less.

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:54:

Ah yes, runs on pure douchery, and an answer from someone I didn’t ask. And a screenshot with no helpful information. I expect no less.

So it is official. You have no idea what you are talking about Linux. Or it's capabilities on ye olde kit.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:59:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:54:

Ah yes, runs on pure douchery, and an answer from someone I didn’t ask. And a screenshot with no helpful information. I expect no less.

So it is official. You have no idea what you are talking about Linux.

Yeah, Obviously I need to question you knowledge of lInux when a question about a web browser used for a specific IBM Pentium-M laptop require a screenshot off a web browser displaying off what looks like a desktop monitor connected to who-knows-what…which shows no browser version, linux distribution version nor hardware info. Call me an old schooler, but answers for questions on vogons sounds better when it’s no rendered in a trolling fashion as a non-sequitur. Because that’s just sad and unfunny. If you want to be unhelpful, fine, but keep that haughty bullshit attitude to yourself.

Since a decade now I started using linux on retro hardware and done most test into every config I built, even K6-2+ boards with 768MB SDRAM and some non-PAE kernel versions plus LXDE Debian GUI. Imho until recently where the 32bit i686 version of the kernel is reaching its end I found that faster but still old hardware could actually make it a useful home computer. For example a Pentium 4 maybe Prescott having its SSE3 istructions with some good AGP card and 2GB DDR Dual Channel plus a SSD can make a good light machine that could until few years ago still (well I've not tried for example modern VP9 or AV1 codecs for multimedia) even use modern web browsers, heavy applications like GIMP, FFMPEG, use the GPU to offload GUI composition tasks or VDPAU/VAAPI decoding obviously choosing some light GUI like LXDE. Beside the high power demand for its times, a functional system like that would be useful 90% of the time for a home computer not used for modern gaming or such thing. If someone would use it just as command line o.s. beside the specific non-PAE i586 kernel need, even older hardware can work quite well. Let's look for example the first ARMv6 generation of Rpi SBC boards far from being a fast CPU to run the o.s. that might be comparable to a Pentium II with 512MB ram more or less, they still can work and get udpates at least last time I used it.

The only problem I've seen with modern kernel version is the lack of specific SSE version in old cpus that might give some error from time to time even when sw is actually functional.

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:08:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:59:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:54:

Ah yes, runs on pure douchery, and an answer from someone I didn’t ask. And a screenshot with no helpful information. I expect no less.

So it is official. You have no idea what you are talking about Linux.

Yeah, Obviously I need to question you knowledge of lInux when a question about a web browser used for a specific IBM Pentium-M laptop require a screenshot off a web browser displaying off what looks like a desktop monitor connected to who-knows-what…which shows no browser version, linux distribution version nor hardware info. Call me an old schooler, but answers for questions on vogons spunds better when it’s no rendered in a trolling fashion as a non-sequitur. Because that’s just sad and unfunny. If you want to be unhelpful, fine.

Show me where in this thread I have been unhelpful. Without any replies to you of course.

You see I'm a person who calls out bull shit when I see it.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:10:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:08:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 06:59:

So it is official. You have no idea what you are talking about Linux.

Yeah, Obviously I need to question you knowledge of lInux when a question about a web browser used for a specific IBM Pentium-M laptop require a screenshot off a web browser displaying off what looks like a desktop monitor connected to who-knows-what…which shows no browser version, linux distribution version nor hardware info. Call me an old schooler, but answers for questions on vogons spunds better when it’s no rendered in a trolling fashion as a non-sequitur. Because that’s just sad and unfunny. If you want to be unhelpful, fine.

Show me where in this thread I have been unhelpful. Without any replies to you of course.

You see I'm a person who calls out bull shit when I see it.

Really? You really need someone to call you out when you are being a dick on this very topic itself, and you are also wrong to boot? You call out bullshit? So do I, and here’s some of your bullshit right here. Why, here’s the earlier thread about firefox ESR…

Re: How low can you go with modern, user-friendly Linux?

First of all, the original poster was running slackware, not Linux mint. The slack release cycle is much different from what the debian/ubuntu/mint folks are doing - in fact, slack hadn’t had an official release update from 14.2 in the past 5 years - 15RC1 is still a beta release. They also switched from firefox to firefox-esr for 14+, so they only ship ESR. So that entire “is it ESR, I don’t think so” comment you made was hogwash. The default firefox package for 14.2 is 45esr, and the last patched one available from their repo is 68esr. Oh look, why there’s the actual slackware repo.

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … /slackware/xap/

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … tches/packages/

Unless someone within the slackware community compiles 78esr and distributes it, you pretty much have to manually compile it and fix whatever issues you run across while doing so - it’s not in their desktop repo because it doesn’t exist. So no, the original poster was right. The slackware firefox-esr maintainer mentioned on the 14.2 changelog that by the time they got around to 78, it’s almost EOL, and it requires a whole bunch of sharlibs and a new compiler needs to be used…that’s why they didn’t.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slac … 2-a-4175682177/

Also, if you read that thread someone pointed to a salix (slackware binary compatible) 78esr build. It’s not official but it’ll work. That being said, if the original poster feels that firefox quantum makes the machine slow, he’s not going to like running 68, 78 or 91. AFAIK firefox versions after 52 are quantim releases.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I was asking which browser was installed on that X31..because I have an X31 and I want to know if:

a) Debian started requiring NX/XD in their later releases (definitely a problem with Banias P-Ms)

b) Does the web browser shipped with Debian 11 require SSE3/ESSE3 support (something that was mentioned with Chromium for a while)

c) OpenGL acceleration was running and was it accelerating the video playback? (the ATi Radeon M6 onboard has no modern video decoding ASICs)

And you have to jump in there and give that sarcastic “thanks for playing” response after giving an answer like that, or those douchey-ass screenshots. Yeah, bravo. REEEEEAAL Helpful there.

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 10:15:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:52:

Really? You really need someone to call you out when you are being a dick on this very topic itself, and you are also wrong to […]
Show full quote

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:10:

Show me where in this thread I have been unhelpful. Without any replies to you of course.

You see I'm a person who calls out bull shit when I see it.

Really? You really need someone to call you out when you are being a dick on this very topic itself, and you are also wrong to boot? You call out bullshit? So do I, and here’s some of your bullshit right here. Why, here’s the earlier thread about firefox ESR…

Re: How low can you go with modern, user-friendly Linux?

First of all, the original poster was running slackware, which is not Linux mint. The slack release cycle is much different from what the debian/ubuntu/mint folks are doing - in fact, slack hadn’t had an official release update from 14.2 in the past 5 years - 15RC1 is still a beta release. They also switched from firefox to firefox-esr for 14+, so they only ship ESR. So that entire “is it ESR, I don’t think so” comment was hogwash. The default firefox package for 14.2 is 45esr, and the last patched one available from their repo is 68esr. Oh look, why there’s the actual slackware repo.

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … /slackware/xap/

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … tches/packages/

Unless someone within the slackware community compiles 78esr and distributes it, you pretty much have to manually compile it and fix whatever issues you run across while doing so - it’s not in their desktop repo because it doesn’t exist. So no, the original poster was right. The slackware firefox-esr maintainer mentioned on the 14.2 changelog that by the time they got around to 78, it’s almost EOL, and it requires a whole bunch of sharlibs and a new compiler needs to be used…that’s why they didn’t.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slac … 2-a-4175682177/

Also, if you read that thread someone pointed to a salix (slackware binary compatible) 78esr build. It’s not official but it’ll work. That being said, if the original poster feels that firefox quantum makes the machine slow, he’s not going to like running 68, 78 or 91. AFAIK firefox versions after 52 are quantim releases.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I was asking which browser was installed on that X31..because I have an X31 and I want to know if:
a) Debian started requiring NX/XD in their later releases (definitely a problem with Banias P-Ms)

b) Does the web browser shipped with Debian 11 require SSE3/ESSE3 support (something that was mentioned with Chromium for a while)

c) OpenGL acceleration was running and was it accelerating the video playback? (the ATi Radeon M6 onboard has no modern video decoding ASICs)

And you have to jump in there and give that sarcastic “thanks for playing” response after giving an answer like that, or those douchey-ass screenshots. Yeah, bravo. REEEEEAAL Helpful there.

You really are a funny fallow. Have I mentioned that yet?

tbf, you haven't addressed any of ragefury32's point's though?

spiroyster wrote on 2021-09-18, 11:42:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 10:15:

ragefury32 wrote on 2021-09-18, 07:52:

Really? You really need someone to call you out when you are being a dick on this very topic itself, and you are also wrong to […]
Show full quote

Really? You really need someone to call you out when you are being a dick on this very topic itself, and you are also wrong to boot? You call out bullshit? So do I, and here’s some of your bullshit right here. Why, here’s the earlier thread about firefox ESR…

Re: How low can you go with modern, user-friendly Linux?

First of all, the original poster was running slackware, which is not Linux mint. The slack release cycle is much different from what the debian/ubuntu/mint folks are doing - in fact, slack hadn’t had an official release update from 14.2 in the past 5 years - 15RC1 is still a beta release. They also switched from firefox to firefox-esr for 14+, so they only ship ESR. So that entire “is it ESR, I don’t think so” comment was hogwash. The default firefox package for 14.2 is 45esr, and the last patched one available from their repo is 68esr. Oh look, why there’s the actual slackware repo.

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … /slackware/xap/

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/slack … tches/packages/

Unless someone within the slackware community compiles 78esr and distributes it, you pretty much have to manually compile it and fix whatever issues you run across while doing so - it’s not in their desktop repo because it doesn’t exist. So no, the original poster was right. The slackware firefox-esr maintainer mentioned on the 14.2 changelog that by the time they got around to 78, it’s almost EOL, and it requires a whole bunch of sharlibs and a new compiler needs to be used…that’s why they didn’t.

https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/slac … 2-a-4175682177/

Also, if you read that thread someone pointed to a salix (slackware binary compatible) 78esr build. It’s not official but it’ll work. That being said, if the original poster feels that firefox quantum makes the machine slow, he’s not going to like running 68, 78 or 91. AFAIK firefox versions after 52 are quantim releases.

Oh, and in case you are wondering, I was asking which browser was installed on that X31..because I have an X31 and I want to know if:
a) Debian started requiring NX/XD in their later releases (definitely a problem with Banias P-Ms)

b) Does the web browser shipped with Debian 11 require SSE3/ESSE3 support (something that was mentioned with Chromium for a while)

c) OpenGL acceleration was running and was it accelerating the video playback? (the ATi Radeon M6 onboard has no modern video decoding ASICs)

And you have to jump in there and give that sarcastic “thanks for playing” response after giving an answer like that, or those douchey-ass screenshots. Yeah, bravo. REEEEEAAL Helpful there.

You really are a funny fallow. Have I mentioned that yet?

tbf, you haven't addressed any of ragefury32's point's though?

The whole point of this thread is linux linux on older kit no his ramblings. He unable to come to except the an old computer like one previous poster and this P4 I'm typing this on can play youtube videos without much bother at all. Instead explodes like a fire cracker.

See you'll in the morning. i'm back off to counting sheep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 13:56:

spiroyster wrote on 2021-09-18, 11:42:

Caluser2000 wrote on 2021-09-18, 10:15:

You really are a funny fallow. Have I mentioned that yet?

tbf, you haven't addressed any of ragefury32's point's though?

The whole point of this thread is linux linux on older kit no his ramblings. He unable to come to except the an old computer like one previous poster and this P4 I'm typing this on can play youtube videos without much bother at all. Instead explodes like a fire cracker.

See you'll in the morning. i'm back off to counting sheep zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Okay, enough. This is pathetic even coming from you. When you get it wrong your usual modus operandi is to laugh it off…which makes the “more than happy to be corrected” line on your signature ironic.

Ths argument isn’t about your P4. It isn’t even about what you have or what you run. Someone asked about firefox ESR on slackware, and you keep insisting that esr78 exists on their distro, and that their 15Rc1 machine isn’t running esr (wrong again)

Someone chimed in that they ran debian 11 (Debian 11 with the GNOME2 derivative MATE UI) on their X31, and you just naturally assumed that they are on mint lxde4 (totally different distro) and somehow your browser is what they are running (what, debian has at least 4 browsers, Epiphany, Chromium, Konqueror, and then firefox), without regard for the hardware (an 18 year old Pentium-M thinkpad with different capabilities to a P4) and whether it’s relevant to whether it has a P4 or not - you don’t even need a P4 for smooth video playback - drop an nVidia GPU in the Fermi/Kepler generation or above, and VDAPU will offload it regardless of what you have assuming that the software doesn’t use any unsupported instructions. That’s how the nVidia Ion chipset accelerates video and gaming on the old Bonnell Atoms. And no, you don’t get to be a gatekeeper and dictate the topic of discussion. Both questions are perfectly valid for running user friendly Linux on old hardware (and frankly, you also don’t get to dictate how old the hardware has to be in order for it to be of interest), and you got it wrong on both counts.
Now kindly sit at the corner and let the adults in the room handle the questions.

mrfrakes wrote on 2021-04-27, 13:28:

Actually, I am running the latest version of Debian on a PII 400MHz with 192MB of RAM. I am using the Q4OS distro with the Trini […]
Show full quote

Actually, I am running the latest version of Debian on a PII 400MHz with 192MB of RAM. I am using the Q4OS distro with the Trinity Desktop (https://q4os.org/index.html). They claim it can go as low as 300 MHz and 128MB which seems plausible.
The system is surprisingly responsive, even the integrated web browser is usable. But forget about firefox etc.
It was a fight to get the video drivers going since they dont ship with the newest version of Debian and the install took an eternity, but other than that it was a pretty easy experience.
I do recommend a big swap partition and fast hard drive or SSD with IDE adapter

Thanks for the link, I'll be trying it, once i'm in the mood, on my dual P2-550 with 2GB Ram
It has been giving me some odd quirks with latest linux releases, odd NMI errors, while older dists gave no hint of an NMI error.
I can't figure out if it's some hardware failing, or if it's just some software incompatibility that got introduced with the later kernels.
Or worse, it could be both.... sigh.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-09-18, 20:43:

Thanks for the link, I'll be trying it, once i'm in the mood, on my dual P2-550 with 2GB Ram It has been giving me some odd qui […]
Show full quote

mrfrakes wrote on 2021-04-27, 13:28:

Actually, I am running the latest version of Debian on a PII 400MHz with 192MB of RAM. I am using the Q4OS distro with the Trini […]
Show full quote

Actually, I am running the latest version of Debian on a PII 400MHz with 192MB of RAM. I am using the Q4OS distro with the Trinity Desktop (https://q4os.org/index.html). They claim it can go as low as 300 MHz and 128MB which seems plausible.
The system is surprisingly responsive, even the integrated web browser is usable. But forget about firefox etc.
It was a fight to get the video drivers going since they dont ship with the newest version of Debian and the install took an eternity, but other than that it was a pretty easy experience.
I do recommend a big swap partition and fast hard drive or SSD with IDE adapter

Thanks for the link, I'll be trying it, once i'm in the mood, on my dual P2-550 with 2GB Ram
It has been giving me some odd quirks with latest linux releases, odd NMI errors, while older dists gave no hint of an NMI error.
I can't figure out if it's some hardware failing, or if it's just some software incompatibility that got introduced with the later kernels.
Or worse, it could be both.... sigh.

That can happen on ye olde systems. I'll give Q4OS a shot on my NEC PowerMate VT later on....😉

Just did a automated installation of q4os. Went through and installed except for Xorg. q4os defaulted to the text login prompt. I didn't see the default log user on q4os's site at all. Did a quick search on the interweb and found out it was adminqand logged in easy enough. Ran Xorg -configure and it complain about not any mice. A usb and ps/s were attached and on other distros's they generally will pick both up.

In the process of doing a normal install to see how that goes.

One thing that would be great is have Midnight Commander (mc). If it isn't in a default distro install it's the first program I will install to get around the file system and edit config files to my liking. Being a bit dyslexic it is easier to get around.

Oh well on on .....😉

Edit: Same situation with Xorg with the normal install. Part of the Xorg issue may well be the LCD TV I'm using as a monitor. Tomorrow I'll swap it with a HP 18ish" inch LCD monitor. I'll also fit a wireless nic and another video card to test out.

Did a few tests on a number of distros yesterday between yard work . Layiung grass seed, putting down scoria plus lime stone chip in the garden and other tings like that.

NEC PowerMate VT with 64 megs of PC100 ram CPU is a socket 370 Celery 800

Xandros 2 installed fine.
Devuan Jessie install fine.
4qos installed ok but didn't pick up the video like the above two.
Busten Labs Lithium and Debian 9 went to low memory install. Need to recut new optical media. as both complianed about being unable to read from the installation media.

NEC PowerMate VT with 64 + 128 meg PC100 ram sticks.

The above 4qos les s Xwindows setup, Duvean Jessie, and Xandros installed fine as would be expected.

Slackware 14.2, Mageia 7/8, Duvean BeoWolf, LMDE4 (in normal mode ) all had kernel panics.

Bunsen Labs Lithium went to low memory install mode.
Debian 9 on the other hand didn't drop to low memory install mode.

To my surprise Linux Mint Debian Edition 4, in compatibility mode, did load up the kernal to the point of the flashing curser before the desk logo and wall paper appare. No error messages what so ever.

So all in all not a general failure.

If anyone has a newish distro for older kit they want tested let me know and I will give it a crack.

Well off to have breky now......

NEC PowerMate VT with 256megs of PC100 ram CPU is a socket 370 Celery 800

Slackware 14.2 with huge.s kernel installed to hdd ok but needed xorg tweeking. This installed fine on my K6-2 400 rig with the same amount of ram with no need to alter xorg settings at all.

AntiX 19.x installed but also needed xorg tweeked.

Mageia 7/8, Bunsen Labs Lithium, Ubuntu 16.06.6 all failed to install.

Ubuntu 12.o4 install without any trouble whatsoever. Loads up Unity which I've never tried before. Transparencies and all that flash stuff works. quite snappy really. I'll have a play a bit more with it tomorrow. Pics below.

Need to burn a few disk because some distro s couldn't read off them.

Stay tuned.....