oldtopman Posted May 2, 2010 Share Posted May 2, 2010 Are there any command line linuxes for the x86 processors? I dont mean install ubuntu and open a commandline either. I mean commandline install with commandline setup with commandline apps/games. Floppy install is preferable. Its for the ibm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted May 2, 2010 Share Posted May 2, 2010 Are there any command line linuxes for the x86 processors? I dont mean install ubuntu and open a commandline either. I mean commandline install with commandline setup with commandline apps/games. Floppy install is preferable. Its for the ibm. You could use Debian: just perform a minimal install: http://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/ The "netinst" image contains the installer and the base system. It will allow you to install a very basic system from the CD; any other packages you might want to install have to be downloaded from the internet. Many other distros allow minimal install or have been created with old computers in mind: http://distrowatch.com/ http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category...p;status=Active Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtopman Posted May 3, 2010 Author Share Posted May 3, 2010 Ok, thanks. Know of any good commandline apps/games? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted May 3, 2010 Share Posted May 3, 2010 Ok, thanks. Know of any good commandline apps/games? Not really. I have always had powerful computers. But some distros are very light even if you use a GUI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AKant Posted May 4, 2010 Share Posted May 4, 2010 Are there any command line linuxes for the x86 processors? I dont mean install ubuntu and open a commandline either. I mean commandline install with commandline setup with commandline apps/games. Floppy install is preferable. Its for the ibm. Could you give us a general idea of the hardware? (I coulnd't find the specs for the laptop in your sig). If you have a very old computer (pre-pentium) you could try running puppy linux, or damn small, or install a netBSD. as for apps, if it's not too old you can always install Xorg and a lightweight WM like fluxbox so you can have graphical stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtopman Posted May 13, 2010 Author Share Posted May 13, 2010 The Specs: Pentium 75 (75 Mhz) 40MB ram 1.4 GB HD 648x480x16 The Ports: Floppy Drive 2 pcmcia slots (Ihave a cd drive and a network card Netgear FA410TX) Serial Port Vga Port PS/2 Port What I can do: Move files from the CD drive to the hard drive Make Floppies Make CD's Put the HD in anothe computer that can boot from a CD What I've Tried: DSL frugal install (manually). X was broken and there wasn't much it was good for with that distro commandline only Puppy Linux Frugal Install (manually) Very strange problem you cant help me with Both of the above installed from another laptop with the hd swap same problems DeLi Linux (another laptop HD swap method) Buggy, Unstable, could only run xterm, Fonts broken, only worked with 640x480x8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted May 24, 2010 Share Posted May 24, 2010 Out of interest, I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind. 1)When (which year) did you buy your computer? (If I had to guess I'd say around 95/96) 2)Which OS was originally installed? (probably Windows 95) Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtopman Posted May 26, 2010 Author Share Posted May 26, 2010 Hand-Me-Down from my Grandma, work laptop, then they gave out new ones, she didn't turn it in and 5years later she dug it out and asked if the company would want it. She was then (unofficially) told to keep it whereupon my dad got it from her (it ran win95 the whole time) for my mom. At this point the cd drive and network card were purchased (early 2000's). In early 2008 I wanted a computer and used it until late 2008 when I decided i needed a real laptop and bought (with my dad) a PowerBook G3 (Firewire). While using the pismo (codename for the apple) I installed win98 and then became a linux nut and refused to (re)install windows. Afterwards I have obtained numerous laptops including the presario and a lot of old dells. I know that some linux can run since win9* worked perfectly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted May 26, 2010 Share Posted May 26, 2010 Hand-Me-Down from my Grandma, work laptop, then they gave out new ones, she didn't turn it in and 5years later she dug it out and asked if the company would want it. She was then (unofficially) told to keep it whereupon my dad got it from her (it ran win95 the whole time) for my mom. At this point the cd drive and network card were purchased (early 2000's). In early 2008 I wanted a computer and used it until late 2008 when I decided i needed a real laptop and bought (with my dad) a PowerBook G3 (Firewire). While using the pismo (codename for the apple) I installed win98 and then became a linux nut and refused to (re)install windows. Afterwards I have obtained numerous laptops including the presario and a lot of old dells. I know that some linux can run since win9* worked perfectly. Very interesting story! So I guessed the original OS correctly. I imagined that it could run Windows 98 as well, a much better OS than 95, at least 98 SE. I suppose I guessed correctly when it was built as well. Of course such a computer is only a tender memory nowadays, or maybe a challenge, as you can buy laptops which are probably hundred, if not thousand of times as fast. A benchmark would be very interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtopman Posted May 29, 2010 Author Share Posted May 29, 2010 A benchmark would be very interesting. I would need an os to do that. With that, this thread shall die. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 For future reference: when you have such an old computer you can only "play" with it, but not really use it. Else donate it to a computer museum. There is one where I live, and they have quite a large collection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted December 18, 2011 Share Posted December 18, 2011 I wonder if a Pentium 75 could run textmode Quake. meh. I can't find a video of it, so instead here are three screenshots of The Matrix playing in Terminal.app via VLC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 Even in 2002, when I bought my first laptop, graphics was by far the weakest point. I had the infamous S3 Twister. Not to mention my sister's laptop, a Compaq a few years older, with a Pentium 2 at 400 Mhz circa, 190MB RAM if I remember correctly, but graphics were really horrible. Decent graphics is a recent improvement. Even my 3 years old laptop, donated to a children's home, had a pretty miserly Geforce 8600M 256M. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gringo Vermelho Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 My first PC was a 350Mhz Pentium II with 128MB RAM, 16MB Nvidia TNT and Soundblaster AWE64 Gold in an ASUS P2B mobo with the legendary 440BX chipset. It cost me a small fortune. I didn't pick the parts but I assembled it myself. I'm still amazed that I didn't break anything. At the end of its lifetime it was rocking a 600MHz Pentium III (via some funky adapter), 256MB RAM, Soundblaster Live! and a 32MB Geforce 256, which would have beaten the {censored} out of your S3 Twister :-) I never got around to install XP on it, I believe it came with a Windows 95 CD, but ran Windows 98 SE through most of its long and glorious life. This was 1998 to..hmm..about 2002 I guess? Anyway it was a very nice PC, very stable and fast enough to play the latest games of the era and even do some music production. I'm sure I could still find a use for that machine today - maybe as a Linux based fileserver/firewall. Even for occasional DOS/Windows 98 retro gaming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandro17 Posted December 19, 2011 Share Posted December 19, 2011 a 32MB Geforce 256, which would have beaten the {censored} out of your S3 Twister :-) Oh yes, I am very well aware of that. A 32MB GeForce was the very best you could get on a 2002 laptop, for some horrendous price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fos Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 You should give Grml a try. It is designed with administrators in mind and defaults to a command line. It generally works on older systems. It is very stable and well maintained. fos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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