Re: Debian on an old PC
On Fri, Jan 07, 2005 at 12:53:11PM -0600, Kent West wrote:
> Paul Johnson wrote:
>
> >On Thursday 06 January 2005 01:44 pm, John Schmidt wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Old pcs often can't boot from a CD even if they have one. You might
> >>be able to flash the BIOS to upgrade it, but that assumes there is an
> >>update out there (highly unlikely).
> >>
> >>
> >
> >If it's too old to boot from a CD, wouldn't it also pre-date flashable
> >BIOS?
> >
> >
> No, I remember flashing old AT&T 6300 (4.77MHz 8086 PC) PCs here on
> campus because they had a Y2K-style glitch in the BIOS; it wouldn't go
> beyond 1987 or thereabouts (my memory is hazy).
Hey! I'm using one of those as a text terminal (typing this on it
actually). The display is a bit slow on long listings, but I *really*
like the feel/key placement of the keyboard.
Back more on-topic for this thread, I still use some older PC's. But
*fast enough* is pretty relative. One can manage with some pretty slow
hardware until you try something faster. I used gdm/enlightenment on an
AMD 686 ~150Mhz with 48MB memory for sometime. But after trying faster
hardware it really starts to seem intolerably slow.
What I find is the biggest problem on older hardware is actually getting
large amounts of memory for them. They don't really have enough memory
slots to add, and by the time you replace them with larger DIMMS the
cost becomes a significant chunk of an all-around better used machine.
(Of course if the machine is new enough to use current memory modules
then it becomes much easier.)
--
Chris Harris <charris@rtcmarketing.com>
-------------------------------------------
GNU/Linux --- The best things in life are free.
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