[plug] Free CD linux - any good ?

[Leon Brooks]

Peter Wright wrote:

>> It is an AMD DX4/133 ie 33Mhz Bus, 4x clocked, though 40Mhz bus, (3.3V)
> 
>> What I was really wondering about is - will the 486 architecture be OK -
>> is there a 'switch' conditional setup/compile to exclude pentium class
>> inst ?
> 
No, plain Mandrake won't work on a '486. There are '486 CD images, 
however, and if you install on a 486 or better and recompile the kernel 
to include FP emulation, these will even run OK on a '386, not that 
you'd want to run very much on a '386 these days.

> Mandrake is one of those distros
> that have decided to specifically say "stuff the low end" and go all out
> with a distro aimed at higher end PCs. And I must say they do it very well.

...without actually leaving out the low end, although you do have to 
fetch the source RPMs for security updates and make binaries out of them 
(rpm -bb specfile and wait a lo-o-o-ng time on a '386) before 
installing, instead of just fetching the binaries.

Cheers.