I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.

I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
usb dongle.
Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
size of the limited memory.

Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?

Thanks,
Jimmy

jimmy_please@yahoo.com <jimmy_please@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
> 
> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
> usb dongle.
> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
> size of the limited memory.
> 
> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?

Save yourself a lot of grief and round up $40 or so and
buy a used far-more-capable laptop.

32MB RAM is just not enough to do much of anything useful
in the modern world.

Stan

On 2010-03-05, jimmy_please@yahoo.com <jimmy_please@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.

What version of Linux?

>
> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
> usb dongle.

What does "I have tried DSL" mean?  
Do you mean Damn Small Linux? If so what version, what kernel?

> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop

option to what? 

> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
> size of the limited memory.

??? I do agree that 32mb is pretty small. Can you increase it?

>
> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?

The wireless dongle is
probably having trouble because the version of Linux you have is so old
it did not exist when that version was created. What kernel are you
running?
 
>
> Thanks,
> Jimmy

On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:41 -0800, jimmy_please@yahoo.com wrote:

> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
> 
> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless usb
> dongle.
> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
> size of the limited memory.
> 
> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jimmy

You are wasting your time. If DSL didn't do it chances are nothing will. 
You could give PUPPY a try, when that fails you can use the laptop as a 
doorstop.

On 2010-03-05, General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:41 -0800, jimmy_please@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
>> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
>> 
>> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless usb
>> dongle.
>> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
>> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
>> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
>> size of the limited memory.
>> 
>> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
>> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> Jimmy
>
> You are wasting your time. If DSL didn't do it chances are nothing will. 
> You could give PUPPY a try, when that fails you can use the laptop as a 
> doorstop.

He said DSL did work, but it did not recognize his usb wireless device.
He did not tell us which v ersion he used. He did not tell us anything
so it makes it Damn difficult to give advice. 

On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:41 -0800, jimmy_please@yahoo.com wrote:

> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
> 
> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless usb
> dongle.
> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
> size of the limited memory.
> 
> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jimmy

That's not 'really old' - I have a 'really old' laptop - Zenith with 
8086, 640K ram and two floppies.

I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb - 
no flier, but it works.

ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote:
> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb - 
> no flier, but it works.

I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't get
Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.

I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro that
worked with 32Mb RAM. 

Mark.

-- 
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818  http://markhobley.yi.org/

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Mark Hobley wrote:

> ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote:
>> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb -
>> no flier, but it works.
>
> I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't get
> Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.
>
> I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro that
> worked with 32Mb RAM.
>
Actually he said something about 640megs, which I'm sure was an error.

It's easy to find distributions that run with 32megs of RAM. When I 
started running Linux in mid-2001, that's all I had, and a 2gig hard
drive.  Of course, I was using Slackware 7.0, which was a tad old at the 
time.

Remember, Linux ran originally in 4megs (or was it less?), but watch
out that you have enough swap space.

Finding a distribution that is current and runs in 32megs probably
is another issue.

   Michael

On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:23:15 -0500, Michael Black wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Mark Hobley wrote:
> 
>> ray <ray@zianet.com> wrote:
>>> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with
>>> 64mb - no flier, but it works.
>>
>> I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't
>> get Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.
>>
>> I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro
>> that worked with 32Mb RAM.
>>
> Actually he said something about 640megs, which I'm sure was an error.
> 
> It's easy to find distributions that run with 32megs of RAM. When I
> started running Linux in mid-2001, that's all I had, and a 2gig hard
> drive.  Of course, I was using Slackware 7.0, which was a tad old at the
> time.
> 
> Remember, Linux ran originally in 4megs (or was it less?), but watch out
> that you have enough swap space.
> 
> Finding a distribution that is current and runs in 32megs probably is
> another issue.
> 
>    Michael

He probably meant 64M, 640M will run any distro. 

I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an 
antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane. Actually 
that's a poor analogy because Moores law never applied to airplanes, a 
modern passenger jet is only about 20 times faster then the Wright Flyer 
whereas a modern PC has 256 times as much memory and is at least that 
many times faster then the shitbox that the OP is talking about. Even if 
he gets it to work, which might be possible if he builds a custom kernel 
for DSL, using the thing is going to be painful. You can can get a 
netbook, or build a low end desktop, for a couple of hundred bucks. For 
less money you should be able to find something that's only five or six 
years old that that will perform decently. A 10 year old machine would 
have 512M on it, that's enough to run any distro although not very well. 
You could probably get someone to pay you to take a 10 year old machine 
off their hands, the recycling fee is about $20 so the OP could offer to 
take the machine away for $10 and both parties would be happy.

On 03/06/2010 08:08 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an
> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane. Actually
> that's a poor analogy because Moores law never applied to airplanes, a
> modern passenger jet is only about 20 times faster then the Wright Flyer
> whereas a modern PC has 256 times as much memory and is at least that
> many times faster then the shitbox that the OP is talking about. Even if
> he gets it to work, which might be possible if he builds a custom kernel
> for DSL, using the thing is going to be painful. You can can get a
> netbook, or build a low end desktop, for a couple of hundred bucks. For
> less money you should be able to find something that's only five or six
> years old that that will perform decently. A 10 year old machine would
> have 512M on it, that's enough to run any distro although not very well.
> You could probably get someone to pay you to take a 10 year old machine
> off their hands, the recycling fee is about $20 so the OP could offer to
> take the machine away for $10 and both parties would be happy.
>
You've never taken on a challenge just to see if you could do it, have you?

I don't understand this mania for throwing perfectly good machinery 
away, just because it's "experienced." While the OP may indeed be trying 
to put a size 12 foot into a size 6 shoe, the "10 year old machine" you 
are so quick to dismiss as one step from the scrap heap is anything but. 
I have a 10 year old desktop with 512M, though I admit it didn't come 
that way. It runs Mandriva 2010.0 with KDE 4 just fine. With the nVidia 
FX5500 video card installed, it even runs the KDE 4 eyecandy without 
skipping a beat. OK, so I wouldn't want to do a lot of multitasking, and 
editing a photo with The GIMP could be a painful process. So what? If 
all I want to do, as the OP said *he* wanted to do, is surf the Web, get 
some email, and lurk in newsgroups, the above machine is all I'd need - 
and more. I, for one, would *NOT* "pay the OP to take the machine away."

TJ
-- 
90 per cent of everything is crud.

- Theodore Sturgeon

On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:15:05 -0500, TJ wrote:

> On 03/06/2010 08:08 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> 
>> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an
>> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane. Actually
>> that's a poor analogy because Moores law never applied to airplanes, a
>> modern passenger jet is only about 20 times faster then the Wright
>> Flyer whereas a modern PC has 256 times as much memory and is at least
>> that many times faster then the shitbox that the OP is talking about.
>> Even if he gets it to work, which might be possible if he builds a
>> custom kernel for DSL, using the thing is going to be painful. You can
>> can get a netbook, or build a low end desktop, for a couple of hundred
>> bucks. For less money you should be able to find something that's only
>> five or six years old that that will perform decently. A 10 year old
>> machine would have 512M on it, that's enough to run any distro although
>> not very well. You could probably get someone to pay you to take a 10
>> year old machine off their hands, the recycling fee is about $20 so the
>> OP could offer to take the machine away for $10 and both parties would
>> be happy.
>>
> You've never taken on a challenge just to see if you could do it, have
> you?

I've gone trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes if that's what you 
mean, but I've never wasted my time on a pointless challenge. Trying to 
use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then running your lawn 
sprinklers is just silly. Even if the OP can get it to work at all the 
performance would be absolutely awful.


> I have a 10 year old desktop with 512M, though I admit it didn't come
> that way. It runs Mandriva 2010.0 with KDE 4 just fine. With the nVidia
> FX5500 video card installed, it even runs the KDE 4 eyecandy without
> skipping a beat. OK, so I wouldn't want to do a lot of multitasking, and
> editing a photo with The GIMP could be a painful process. So what? If
> all I want to do, as the OP said *he* wanted to do, is surf the Web, get
> some email, and lurk in newsgroups, the above machine is all I'd need -
> and more. I, for one, would *NOT* "pay the OP to take the machine away."
> 
> TJ

I have a 10 year old 512M machine myself, I use it as an ssh server. I'm 
running CentOS5.4 in INIT 3. It's completely adequate for that purpose 
although if I had a greener state of mind I wouldn't waste the power that 
it takes, the right thing to do would be to setup a VM on one of my 
modern machines to handle this function, the only reason that I haven't 
replaced it with a VM is that I want to see how long this box will run 
before it gives up the ghost. However 512M is not 32M, it's 16 times 
greater. That factor of 16 is important, it represents the lowest 
threshold for a modern desktop. The performance will be lousy but still 
tolerable. Personally I wouldn't want to live with something like that as 
my desktop, if I was in complete poverty I'd stand outside of a Best Buy 
and wait for someone to come by who wanted to recycle their old XP 
machine. Best Buy charges you $20 to take it off of you're hands, I'd 
offer to do it for nothing. An XP generation machine is likely to have 1G 
of RAM and a single core 2G or better processor in it.  

General Schvantzkoph writes:
> I've gone trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes if that's what you
> mean, but I've never wasted my time on a pointless challenge.

What is the "point" in trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes?

> Trying to use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then
> running your lawn sprinklers is just silly.

So is walking up and down mountains that you could fly over.

> Even if the OP can get it to work at all the performance would be
> absolutely awful.

As, no doubt, was your performance in the Himalayas compared to that of
the sherpas.
-- 
John Hasler 
jhasler@newsguy.com
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, WI USA

On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:48:23 -0600, John Hasler wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph writes:
>> I've gone trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes if that's what you
>> mean, but I've never wasted my time on a pointless challenge.
> 
> What is the "point" in trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes?
> 
>> Trying to use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then
>> running your lawn sprinklers is just silly.
> 
> So is walking up and down mountains that you could fly over.
> 
>> Even if the OP can get it to work at all the performance would be
>> absolutely awful.
> 
> As, no doubt, was your performance in the Himalayas compared to that of
> the sherpas.

If you want to stretch this analogy, the Sherba and Inca guides 
functioned like modern quad core/8G machines. At 10,000 ft I was able to 
function like a decent late model single core system. At 12,000 feet I 
was still at the 1GHz, 1GByte level, at 14,000 I was down to a 
500MHz/512M system, i.e. I could function at the very low end of 
adequate. When I was in Bolivia I did the equivalent of trying to run 
Linux on a 32M system, I walked from 17,000 to 18,000ft. I had to stop 
and catch my breath after every few steps, my Bolivian guide was 
completely comfortable. I was able to prove to myself that I could 
survive at that altitude for a couple of hours but I wasn't able to do 
much else, it was the human equivalent of booting DSL. As for Everest, I 
saw that from a small airplane, my trying to climb that would be like 
trying to run Gnome on a PC/AT with 16K of RAM.

General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an 
> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane.

Not really. A Pentium 120 with 32Mb RAM is perfectly cable of running a
multitasking graphical operating system.

It's only code bloat that makes this impossible. The limitations encountered
are not due to the machine, but due to poor implementation and bloated code.

Mark.

-- 
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818  http://markhobley.yi.org/

On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:08:03 +0000, Mark Hobley wrote:

> General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an
>> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane.
> 
> Not really. A Pentium 120 with 32Mb RAM is perfectly cable of running a
> multitasking graphical operating system.
> 
> It's only code bloat that makes this impossible. The limitations
> encountered are not due to the machine, but due to poor implementation
> and bloated code.
> 
> Mark.

I'm not saying it's not theoretically possible to write an OS that can 
run like a bat out of hell on a 32M machine, I'm just saying that Linux 
in it's current form isn't that OS. Code bloat is a fact of life, there 
is a corollary to Parkinson's law which states that code grows to fit the 
RAM allotted. At any given time the software available for that 
generation's machines was tuned to run fairly comfortably. When I was in 
college in the early 70s we had 16 people running on a .25 MIP/256K PDP 
11/70. That machine was more responsive then today's 12,000 MIP/12G 
iCore7 systems running a single user. Of course we were running line 
editors and the only graphics were simple vector graphics games running 
on a storage tube display (for you kids out there, storage tubes were 
CRTs that used very persistent phosphors, when you drew a lien it would 
remain there for a minute or until you erased the entire screen).

Today's code is tuned to modern machines, trying to run it on a 15 year 
old system is not going to result in a happy experience.

  

On comp.os.linux.misc, Stan Bischof <stan@newserve.worldbadminton.com> wrote:
> jimmy_please@yahoo.com <jimmy_please@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
>> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
>> 
>> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
>> usb dongle.
>> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
>> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
>> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
>> size of the limited memory.
>> 
>> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
>> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
>
> Save yourself a lot of grief and round up $40 or so and
> buy a used far-more-capable laptop.
>
> 32MB RAM is just not enough to do much of anything useful
> in the modern world.
>
> Stan
>

Nonsense. I normally use less than that. Unless you are using the
Internet as a virtual shopping mall or a new variation of the
boob tube for mindless entertainment, a textmode browser works
just fine and you can download images and view them with zgv if
needed. 

Most of the images on the web are just eye-candy.

I don't use X, normally, but can if I choose, which
is rarely.

What you call "meaningful" is just the opposite.

As for commerce, it is foolish to do business with a company on
the web that doesn't have a phone number that you can order over.
And doing it this way is much more secure.

You are just another sellout trying to turn Linux into
a Windows clone.

Hackers into ignorant appliance operators.

Sid

 

On 03/06/2010 01:00 PM, Sidney Lambe wrote:
> On comp.os.linux.misc, Stan Bischof<stan@newserve.worldbadminton.com>  wrote:
>> jimmy_please@yahoo.com<jimmy_please@yahoo.com>  wrote:
>>> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
>>> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
>>>
>>> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
>>> usb dongle.
>>> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
>>> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
>>> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
>>> size of the limited memory.
>>>
>>> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
>>> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
>>
>> Save yourself a lot of grief and round up $40 or so and
>> buy a used far-more-capable laptop.
>>
>> 32MB RAM is just not enough to do much of anything useful
>> in the modern world.
>>
>> Stan
>>
>
> Nonsense. I normally use less than that. Unless you are using the
> Internet as a virtual shopping mall or a new variation of the
> boob tube for mindless entertainment, a textmode browser works
> just fine and you can download images and view them with zgv if
> needed.
>
> Most of the images on the web are just eye-candy.
>
> I don't use X, normally, but can if I choose, which
> is rarely.
>
> What you call "meaningful" is just the opposite.
>
> As for commerce, it is foolish to do business with a company on
> the web that doesn't have a phone number that you can order over.
> And doing it this way is much more secure.
>
> You are just another sellout trying to turn Linux into
> a Windows clone.
>
> Hackers into ignorant appliance operators.
>
> Sid
>
>
>
So, giving your credit card number, including the security code on the 
back, over the phone to some stranger in a minimum-wage phone-answering 
job who can barely speak whatever your native tongue is, is somehow 
"much more secure" than using an Internet site designed for the purpose?

Huh. I'll have to remember that.

Wow. I sure am glad I'm not *you*.

TJ
-- 
90 per cent of everything is crud.

- Theodore Sturgeon

On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:31:36 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> Trying to use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then 
> running your lawn sprinklers is just silly.

The Linksys NSLU2 has only 32 Mbyte of memory and can be used for
sophisticated purposes such as DNS, FTP server, Exim4 mail server,
openSLP server, SAMBA server, etc all running concurrently

            <http://www.nslu2-linux.ORG/>

On 2010-03-06, Mark Hobley <markhobley@hotpop.donottypethisbit.com> wrote:
> General Schvantzkoph <schvantzkoph@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an 
>> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane.
>
> Not really. A Pentium 120 with 32Mb RAM is perfectly cable of running a
> multitasking graphical operating system.

I should say so.  I used to run Linux with X11 comfortably in 8MB of
RAM with 80MB of disk space.  Not to mention SusOS 3 with X11 in 4MB
of RAM.

> It's only code bloat that makes this impossible. The limitations
> encountered are not due to the machine, but due to poor
> implementation and bloated code.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! for ARTIFICIAL
                                  at               FLAVORING!!
                              gmail.com            

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Sidney Lambe wrote:

> On comp.os.linux.misc, Stan Bischof <stan@newserve.worldbadminton.com> wrote:
>> jimmy_please@yahoo.com <jimmy_please@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
>>> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
>>>
>>> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless
>>> usb dongle.
>>> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
>>> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
>>> plug it in.  However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
>>> size of the limited memory.
>>>
>>> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
>>> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
>>
>> Save yourself a lot of grief and round up $40 or so and
>> buy a used far-more-capable laptop.
>>
>> 32MB RAM is just not enough to do much of anything useful
>> in the modern world.
>>
>> Stan
>>
>
> Nonsense. I normally use less than that. Unless you are using the
> Internet as a virtual shopping mall or a new variation of the
> boob tube for mindless entertainment, a textmode browser works
> just fine and you can download images and view them with zgv if
> needed.
>
And the last time you spouted off, you said you were using a very
old version of Slackware.

Which of course is one reason why you're so paranoid, you are using
an old system that is likely vulnerable.  So many of your "workarounds"
wouldn't be needed if you actually upgraded.

I don't use a graphic browser most of the time, but when I need it, there 
are specific reasons for it, and an old graphic browser isn't likely to 
provide those needs

Since that is the sort of thing people often want, then they indeed have 
to use more recent versions of Linux.

   Michael

On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, J G Miller wrote:

> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:31:36 +0000, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
>
>> Trying to use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then
>> running your lawn sprinklers is just silly.
>
> The Linksys NSLU2 has only 32 Mbyte of memory and can be used for
> sophisticated purposes such as DNS, FTP server, Exim4 mail server,
> openSLP server, SAMBA server, etc all running concurrently
>
>            <http://www.nslu2-linux.ORG/>
>
But those are low level things, and it makes sense to use a physically
small computer for such things, rather than wasting space and energy 
running an old desktop (though of course, that's been done, people putting
together a smorgasbord of old computers in order to get a lot of function
done with a better but single computer).

All of those functions were done with small amounts of memory.  Let's not 
forget that about 1997, the minimum RAM requirement for a lot of 
distributions was still merely 4megs.  Of course you could do various
servers in that amount of memory, the servers themselves weren't hogs.

But a desktop, you want to do things that weren't common back then, so
you are more likely to need more memory.

At this point, the oldest of computers that people want to use have
been superceded by more recent discards.  I'm using a 1GHz computer,
that was a hand me down at the end of 2003.  I finally got it up to
the maximum 512megs of RAM 2 years ago when I came across a computer
waiting for the garbage truck, and I grabbed the RAM.  The fact that more 
than once I've stumbled on a computer the same vintage as this 1GHz 
computer indicates people do not have to be stuck in the past.

I can get something 2 or 3 times this speed for less than the $150 I spent 
on a used 200MHz Pentium back in mid-2001.

People are constantly talking about using old computers "for the 
challenge", but others have already done that challenge.

   Michael

I demand that General Schvantzkoph may or may not have written...

[snip]
> However 512M is not 32M, it's 16 times greater.

Actually, no; that would be 544MB. :-þ

[snip]
-- 
| Darren Salt            | linux at youmustbejoking | nr. Ashington, | Doon
| using Debian GNU/Linux | or ds    ,demon,co,uk    | Northumberland | Army
| + http://www.xine-project.org/

Be self-reliant and your success is assured.

On 03/06/2010 10:31 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:
> On Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:15:05 -0500, TJ wrote:
>
>> You've never taken on a challenge just to see if you could do it, have
>> you?
>
> I've gone trekking in the Himalayas and the Andes if that's what you
> mean, but I've never wasted my time on a pointless challenge. Trying to
> use a 32M machine for anything more sophisticated then running your lawn
> sprinklers is just silly. Even if the OP can get it to work at all the
> performance would be absolutely awful.
>
>
The worth of a challenge a very personal thing. A worthwhile challenge 
could be trekking through mountains, restoring an antique, starting a 
new business, inventing a better mousetrap, raising a family, caring for 
a dying loved one, getting a better education, or even trying to make an 
old computer work with a modern OS. The list goes on and on, and the 
worth of an individual challenge depends on the person accepting that 
challenge.

It is not for you or me to decide that another person's choice is 
"pointless."

TJ
-- 
90 per cent of everything is crud.

- Theodore Sturgeon

I have a TI TravelMate 6000 with pentium 133 processor, 1.4 gig hdd, 32 meg ram, no USB .. I have DSL 4.4.1 installed and running with no problems and it does everything I have asked it to do .. it's just something to play with to see what it can do ..