[plug] P75 & Linux

[Bret Busby]

On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, James Elliott wrote:

> 
> Hi PLUGers
> 
> I have a Digital Pentium 75 computer as a second computer.
> 
> My working computer is an AMD dual boot  Win98 / Linux RH7.3
> 
> Both computers have network cards and are connected with a crossover cable.
> 
> I would like to put Debian Linux on the P75.  The P75 only has a 1 Gb hard
> disk and I have found from experience that this is not enough to load Red
> Hat, although I suppose you could possible fit a bare bones version on it.
> Anyway, I want Debian so that I can get used to it and hopefully be in a
> position to choose between RH and Debian down the track.
> 
> Is this feasible or is the P75 too old, too small, too slow?
> 
> I was thinking of going to WA Linux for my copy of Debian.
> 
> I would be obliged for any comments from any of you.
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> James Elliott
> 

I thought that Anne had done her knowledge-base expert system project on a
486 here with a 1GB HDD, so sent her an email to confirm it. The response
and the query are below.

She used Perl and PostgreSQL for the development, from memory.

If she could do that on a 486, with that configuration, depending on what
RAM you have in the P75, you should be able to sufficiently evaluate
Debian.

We are in the midst of two system builds; for me and for Anne, each to
have a system that will boot into Win98, WinNT4, RH 7.3 and Debian, using
lilo and multiple partitions, as a way to compare Debian and RH. A similar
methodology could also allow you to compare RH and Debian.

I presently have multiple booting, with Win98, WinNT4 and RH 6.2, on a
Cyrix 6x86, which, from a benchtest that I did a while ago, was rated as
equivalent to a pentium 75. We also run RH6.2 on a slower Cyrix-based
system, for our server/firewall/gateway. We have Apache running on the
server, for testing stuff before we upload it to our website. My computer
has 64MB RAM; the server has 32MB RAM.

You should be able to install and run Debian on your P75, depending on how
much RAM you have in it.

On Thu, 27 Jun 2002, Anne Busby wrote:
> 
> Yes, the 486 (before it was dismantled) was running Debian Potato, updated
> to Woody.
> 1 GB HD and 16 MB of memory - installed the base system using floppies (?10)
> and completed and updated using the net. Only problems was the network card
> and getting the interrupt, IO and base memory address correct.
> 
> I was running apache, Xwindows (ice as window manager).
> 
> RAM is probably more important as to what it is used for than the CPU
> 
> > 
> > Also, did you install Debian on the 486? Someone posted a 
> > message to the
> > PLUG list, asking whether a Pentium 75 is sufficient for a 
> > Debian trial
> > installation, and, from memory, you installed Debian on the 
> > 486, and did
> > your knowledge based expert system project development on the 
> > 486. Can you
> > please confirm wht you did with the 486, when you were using it with
> > Linux?
> > 
> > -- 
> 
> 

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

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