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Which operating systems work on i586?

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Reply 20 of 90, by Caluser2000

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mr.cat wrote on 2021-02-22, 09:28:
Yes and Caluser2000 mentioned Debian Jessie (~2015) back there, so that gives some indication that maybe some older Mint version […]
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Warlord wrote on 2021-02-22, 08:55:

VectorLinux Light Edition is usable on computers with 256 MB of RAM I'm sure there are other distros but this one is based on slackware.

Yes and Caluser2000 mentioned Debian Jessie (~2015) back there, so that gives some indication that maybe some older Mint versions would also work (since they're based on Ubuntu/Debian).
I would add that in my vm tests, 192MB was enough for most Linux flavors to get them installed. That's way more than what we had back in the day.
(And, if you don't have that much memory, prepare for weirdness...it seems the install programs mostly don't care to check it)

Jessies development only ended last year so it is pretty current. I did get a few web browsers going on it as well.

Devuan, a version of Jessie without systemd, runs fine as well.

Last edited by Caluser2000 on 2021-09-19, 22:12. Edited 1 time in total.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 22 of 90, by mr.cat

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Warlord wrote on 2021-02-22, 21:52:

http://vectorlinux.com/products

Requirements

Light Edition: Pentium 166 or better, 64MB RAM minimum, 1.8GB hard drive space for full system - more for your data.

Hmm, is this a case of false advertising? The install complains about pae and cmov. What hardware were you using?
There *is* a note about VL needing a pae-compatible CPU, but it's on the news page, not the dl one. Damn, this is not as simple as it used to be...

On modern machines, I've settled to LM20 because it's the one that gives me the least amount of fuss oob.
But it would be nice to have some up-to-date equivalent distro for vm/emulator/older machine use.
(I'd prefer to have it debian flavored, so maybe Debian/Devuan/Duvian hits it closest for me. I need to play with it more)

EDIT: Devuan (beowolf 3.1.0) needs cmov and at least 384MB ram.

Last edited by mr.cat on 2021-02-27, 00:23. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 23 of 90, by Caluser2000

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In the Slackware installation you use to be able to switch to a 486 kernal. That may be someting worth trying. I found it less seamless than the above three.

There's a glitch in the matrix.
A founding member of the 286 appreciation society.
Apparently 32-bit is dead and nobody likes P4s.
Of course, as always, I'm open to correction...😉

Reply 24 of 90, by Sphere478

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noted failed install on debian jessie on dual pentium mmx 233 non acpi said non supported cpu type, however worked on k6 3+

Last edited by Sphere478 on 2021-02-25, 13:05. Edited 1 time in total.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 25 of 90, by froller

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  • Windows up to XP
  • Fedora up to 11 (up to 20 on i686)
  • CentOS up to EL6
  • Mandriva up to 2010.2
  • OpenSuse up to 15.2
  • Alt Linux up to 7.0
  • RedHat Linux all versions (not the RedHat Enterprise Linux)
  • Mandrake Linux all versions
  • OS/2 all versions
  • MS-DOS all versions
Last edited by froller on 2021-02-25, 13:36. Edited 4 times in total.

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Virus check complete. All viruses are working properly.

Reply 26 of 90, by Sphere478

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froller wrote on 2021-02-25, 12:52:
[…]
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  • Windows up to XP
  • Fedora up to 20
  • CentOS up to EL6
  • Mandriva up to 2011.0
  • OpenSuse up to 13.1
  • RedHat Linux all versions (not the RedHat Enterprise Linux)
  • Mandrake Linux all versions
  • OS/2 all versions
  • MS-DOS all versions

fedora 14 doesn't work I've been using fedora 11 not sure how you've managed 20 on a 586

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 27 of 90, by froller

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Sphere478 wrote on 2021-02-25, 13:06:

fedora 14 doesn't work I've been using fedora 11 not sure how you've managed 20 on a 586

Yep. My bad. 12 is i686 and above. I've updated my post.

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Virus check complete. All viruses are working properly.

Reply 28 of 90, by kdr

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mr.cat wrote on 2021-02-18, 10:04:
"Of course it runs NetBSD" […]
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"Of course it runs NetBSD"

I'm pretty sure I was using NetBSD 1.5.x or 1.6.x (and maybe OpenBSD too) on AMD K6-2, but u know it has been almost 20 years...
More recently I did some testing on virtual machines and NetBSD definitely seemed much easier on the hw requirement side than Linux, for example.

From their i386 port page:

Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen.

NetBSD/i386 1.6.2 (final version before the kernel got SMP and amd64 support) runs nicely on a 486DX2/66 and it's modern enough to include drivers for all the PCI stuff on a typical Socket 7 / Super Socket 7 mobo.

NetBSD 5.0 (released in 2009) removed support for the 80386 CPU and also removed the FPU emulation code; the i386 port requirements were updated to "NetBSD 5.0 runs on all i486 or later PC-compatible systems with 1 to 32 processors. The minimal configuration for a full, standard installation is 32MB of RAM and 250MB of disk space." This release is still workable on 586/686 machines provided you have enough RAM.

Unlikely that anyone has run recent versions of NetBSD on an actual i486. The hardware requirements section just hasn't been updated since the days of 5.0 release. The GENERIC i386 kernel in NetBSD 9.1 is a whopping 20MB and you'd struggle to boot even a minimal non-X11 system without at least 128MB of RAM.

Reply 30 of 90, by Sphere478

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kdr wrote on 2021-02-25, 23:00:
NetBSD/i386 1.6.2 (final version before the kernel got SMP and amd64 support) runs nicely on a 486DX2/66 and it's modern enough […]
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mr.cat wrote on 2021-02-18, 10:04:
"Of course it runs NetBSD" […]
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"Of course it runs NetBSD"

I'm pretty sure I was using NetBSD 1.5.x or 1.6.x (and maybe OpenBSD too) on AMD K6-2, but u know it has been almost 20 years...
More recently I did some testing on virtual machines and NetBSD definitely seemed much easier on the hw requirement side than Linux, for example.

From their i386 port page:

Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen.

NetBSD/i386 1.6.2 (final version before the kernel got SMP and amd64 support) runs nicely on a 486DX2/66 and it's modern enough to include drivers for all the PCI stuff on a typical Socket 7 / Super Socket 7 mobo.

NetBSD 5.0 (released in 2009) removed support for the 80386 CPU and also removed the FPU emulation code; the i386 port requirements were updated to "NetBSD 5.0 runs on all i486 or later PC-compatible systems with 1 to 32 processors. The minimal configuration for a full, standard installation is 32MB of RAM and 250MB of disk space." This release is still workable on 586/686 machines provided you have enough RAM.

Unlikely that anyone has run recent versions of NetBSD on an actual i486. The hardware requirements section just hasn't been updated since the days of 5.0 release. The GENERIC i386 kernel in NetBSD 9.1 is a whopping 20MB and you'd struggle to boot even a minimal non-X11 system without at least 128MB of RAM.

Do you have a condensed version I can add to OP which versions should someone try on a 586?

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 31 of 90, by kdr

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Sphere478 wrote on 2021-02-26, 04:40:

Do you have a condensed version I can add to OP which versions should someone try on a 586?

Not really sure when exactly NetBSD became unusable on a 586, it'd take some work to narrow it down.

Reply 32 of 90, by lolo799

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I'm not sure if you're looking for the latest versions of operating systems working on i586 or if you're looking for old ones too...if the latter check the sticky Retro Oses thread, I posted about many of them there that works on a first gen Pentium.

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 33 of 90, by Sphere478

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lolo799 wrote on 2021-02-26, 12:17:

I'm not sure if you're looking for the latest versions of operating systems working on i586 or if you're looking for old ones too...if the latter check the sticky Retro Oses thread, I posted about many of them there that works on a first gen Pentium.

the most helpful information is knowing the last version that works of each OS

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 35 of 90, by Sphere478

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Warlord wrote on 2021-02-26, 13:16:

Never figured out why you don't like windows 2000. Its what I would run on that. I can't think of anything that I couldn't get 2000 to do that I would need to do otherwise on a 586.

this thread is a guide after the fact from my experiences trying to get modern operating systems on my 586 builds

I use windows 7 and ME on the k6 and xp sp3 on the dual pentium gpt support would be nice but I can't get 7 onto the dual pentium and it's been rather annoying to say the least cause the dual pentium with 512mb of ram would do everything I want without issue with 7

I've been fighting this gpt issue for the past several days we figured out that I could copy some server 2003 files to make it work but figuring out windows file protection has been a learning experience and now I can't get the gpt hard drives working over usb if

I had been able to just install 7 I wouldn't have to worry about any of this headache

I like win 2k it's one of my favs.

Sphere's PCB projects.
-
Sphere’s socket 5/7 cpu collection.
-
SUCCESSFUL K6-2+ to K6-3+ Full Cache Enable Mod
-
Tyan S1564S to S1564D single to dual processor conversion (also s1563 and s1562)

Reply 36 of 90, by mr.cat

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Warlord wrote on 2021-02-26, 00:33:

alpinelinux

That one seems quite popular among the cloud folk (so should be up to date). I did test that myself in a vm at some point.
It's quite minimal, but I think it has the same 192MB minimum ram requirement that most of the other modern Linuxes have.

Last edited by mr.cat on 2021-02-27, 00:27. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 37 of 90, by lolo799

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Sphere478 wrote on 2021-02-26, 12:52:

the most helpful information is knowing the last version that works of each OS

Not necessarily still in development, though, right?
OpenStep 4.2
QNX 6.2.1
BeOS 5.1d0
Zeta 1.5
Atheos 0.3.7 and its forkSyllable 0.6.7

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 38 of 90, by creepingnet

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I've run a lot of O/S on these...

DOS/WINDOWS
MS-DOS 5.00-7.xx
Windows 3.1 works with them, especially transitional early Pentium models
Windows 95/98 is what most of these ran originally
Windows NT 3.1/3.51/4.0
Windows 2000 PRofessional runs well, especially with a lot of RAM (64MB+)
Windows XP works with these as well, it's just slow as heck

LINUX
Slackware 96'
Red Hat Linux 6.1 "Cartman"

OS/2
OS/2 2.0
OS/2 2.1 w/ Win OS/2
OS/2 Warp 3.0
OS/2 Warp 4

Other
FreeDOS
Bare Command Line Ubuntu x86 (not sure what version)

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