[arachne] Re: Linux (was: Working (OT storms brewing))

Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club!

On Mon, 6 Jun 2005, Glenn Gilbreath Jr. wrote:

> Sam,
> Joe's email server is still Mime Base 64 encoding his emails...

  The *server* is doing the encoding???  Wow.  I'd fire the 
admin.

 [Steve]
>   At this moment, my keyboard is conneted to a machine 
> running FreeBSD on a CyrixIII-750 (eBay barebones purchase 
> a couple years ago for $38).  Most Linux kernels 2.4 and up 
> won't even boot on this processor... though it runs Linux 
> 2.2.x and FreeBSD just fine.
> 
> [Joe]
> 
> Not true. My Linux 2.4.X set-up (Mandrake 8.0, which BTW,
> I haven't used much for quite a while) runs just fine on
> a Cyrix 6x86L-PR200, originally with 32M of RAM, now 64M.

  Yes, true.  On the CyrixIII-750, MOST (I emphasize it 
this time to make sure you note the qualifier) 2.4 kernels 
will not boot.  
  Red Hat 7.3 installed and ran flawlessly (for years), 
while Red Hat 9.0 install CD wouldn't even load the kernel 
much less actually run it.  
  I figured Gentoo should work because you compile the 
entire OS on the machine you're going to run it on.  That 
was still a no-go.  
  Problem is that a CyrixIII identifies itself as a true 
i686 CPU, and 95% of the time, it acts like one, but there 
are some programs that will crash if compiled for i686.  
Those few programs can only run on a CyrixIII if compiled 
for i586 (Pentium).

Debian Woody 3.0 with the 2.2.20 ide-pci kernel ran 
flawlessly.  Fresh install of Woody with the 2.4.x kernel 
wouldn't even boot.

  I'm not going to bore you with the complete list of all 
the distros I've tried, but I will say that few have been 
rock solid on this processor:  Red Hat 7.3, Debian 2.2.20, and 
FreeBSD 5.3 and 5.4.  (Some of the livecd distros worked 
well too, but I don't like eye-candy)

> I recently tried FreeBSD 5.3, typed "startx" at the
> command prompt, then ran away in fear and dread!  <G>
> 
> Of course, I expect that installing a proper GUI
> would have helped, however the "out of the box"
> installation provides a GUI which is quite scary
> (not only very stark, but also doesn't seem to do
> anything).

  All versions of X Windows I've tried (Linux or BSD, 
XFree86 or Xorg) have shipped with the "fallback" twm window 
manager.  IIRC, a right click will bring up the rather 
limited menu of basic functions:
Open an xterm.  Close.  Kill.  Resize.  Lower.  Exit.
Maybe 5 or so more.  It's a completely functional but 
barebones wm that uses practically no resources.

  For example, I'm using windowmaker at the moment, 
considered to be a fairly lightweigth wm.  

$ ll `which wmaker`
-r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  - 508996 Apr  4 05:08 /usr/X11R6/bin/wmaker*

  Compare to twm:  

$ ll `which twm`
-rwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  - 161139 Apr  4 06:52 /usr/X11R6/bin/twm*

  Neither is stripped, so the file size on both could be 
reduced another 25% - 30% by stripping.

  Though come to think of it, if you want to get REALLY 
small, the 9wm is practically invisible, and IIRC, has as 
much functionality as twm.
On the remote RH 6.2 machine (stripped): 

$ ll $(which 9wm)
-rwxr-xr-x    1 root     root        26192 Feb  3  2000 /usr/X11R6/bin/9wm

 [Joe]
> As you can see from Glenn's post, there is finally
> something happening in that area. What we will need at
> the ArachneDevelopment list/group is a Linux guy/gal
> to lend a hand, particularly once Glenn has the Linux
> sources ready for public consumption (I expect that
> will require some surgery first, as did the DOS code,
> due to non-GPL portions, particularly MP's registration
> key stuff).

  Well, we don't no steenkin' file browser or e-mail stuff; 
just the browser.  'Nix has SO many e-mail clients, and when 
you have mc, what else would you need for file browsing / 
managing?
 
-- 
Steve Ackman
http://twoloonscoffee.com       (Need beans?)
http://twovoyagers.com          (glass, linux & other stuff)


Arachne at FreeLists
-- Arachne, The Web Browser/Suite for DOS and Linux --

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