risk assessment for old toolbox

[Douglas Allan Tutty <dtutty@porchlight.ca>]

Hello all,

I have an IBM 486 with 32 MB ram, and S3 video.  I know it runs Woody
very well and it will run Sarge (but sarge uses more memory).  Upgrading
to Etch killed libc6 and I haven't tried a total debian reinstall
woody > sarge > etch again.

Most of the time, I would use this box to ssh into my main box which in
turn access the internet as required (dialup ppp).  

In the past, it has also served as a toolbox.  Able to use its own modem
to access the net so I can browse the net (wooody's dillo) or send email
if I need help fixing a problem with the main box.  It never had
anything listening on external ports.

Woody doesn't get security updates any more.  I tried netbsd but its X
is version 4 which doesn't support the S3 and vesa is far suboptimal.  I
installed OpenBSD and it runs fine and it includes version 3 X servers
for old hardware; but its not debian so I'll have to do things like
configure exim by hand (I don't want to learn sendmail [which would
also require rebuilding to enable TLS] just for a toolbox).  (yes, I'll
have to see if woody's exim will do the TLS that my current ISP
requires).

So the question is: how much risk does a woody box take on dialup
internet for simple mail and browsing?

What have other people here done with old hardware that they still want
to use?

Thanks,

Doug.