My 486 DX2-66. What to do with it?

[evenflow]

I have a couple of 486 DX2-66 PC's here. I don't know what to do with them. Sayang lang naman. Right now its just an extra-large paperweight.

Any suggestions?

[TNT2bluz]

Hmmm...how much RAM do you have inside them?

We could turn those into cheap word-processing web browsing PCs.

Some other uses:

1) File/Print Server
2) Low-end web server
3) Router
4) RAS

[Saiya-jin]

I suggest you kill them: http://www2.mozcom.com/~ronnieg/chips.jpg

[mamangbumbero]

One of my old 486-SX with 20MB served as my home router/gateway for more than a year. Not to mention hosting the old GraPH website.

I recently bought three (3) 486-DX boxes each with 16MB RAM. I'll be using them as a virtual linux server at home -- clustering them together to serve as web cache, DNS cache, CD-RW station, and a few other services.

stay cool.

[Pao|o]

INSTALL LINUX!!!!! USE IT FOR LINUX!!!! BE A LINUX USER!!!!! LINUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D

[TNT2bluz]

Originally posted by mamangbumbero
One of my old 486-SX with 20MB served as my home router/gateway for more than a year. Not to mention hosting the old GraPH website.

I recently bought three (3) 486-DX boxes each with 16MB RAM. I'll be using them as a virtual linux server at home -- clustering them together to serve as web cache, DNS cache, CD-RW station, and a few other services.

stay cool.

Anong distro ang gamit mo for clustering?

That sounds cool, albeit seemingly tedious?

I have a DX4 running FreeSCO.

[mamangbumbero]

Originally posted by TNT2bluz
Anong distro ang gamit mo for clustering?
That sounds cool, albeit seemingly tedious?
I have a DX4 running FreeSCO.

I'm using RH.. which together with MDK, are the only distros I'm comfortable with.

Tedious? Nothing's tedious in the name of learning. I'm setting my cluster up in the hope of learning something so I can make a case in replacing our expensive Solaris/Sparc proxy clusters.

stay cool.

[evenflow]

Thanks for the replies!

I'm particularly interested in installing linux and using it as a home server. Can you guys help me on this?

Thank you very much.

BTW, it has 8 MB ram but I guess I can easily add more. HMR Philippines is just around the corner.

:enlightened:

[ginoledesma]

evenflow, sure, no problem. We can help you get started with Linux on your 486.

Remember, however, to think "lean." That is, don't expect Linux with all the tidings to work faster than Windows 95.

I recommend personally that you forget about installing X Window (the graphical user interface) on your 486. Though usable, you might find the speed intolerable. Besides, Linux's console interface isn't that hard. :) Its by far friendlier than DOS, in my opinion. :)

Your 486 could act as a router which can help you share an internet connection (say DSL or cable) among your other computers. It could also act as a firewall, which is getting very, very important nowadays. It could also serve as a file and print server for which you could temporarily dump your files to and print files from.

Linux is also a great programming environment. Though a 486 isn't too fast nowadays, you could learn to build simple programs in C/C++, Java, Perl, Python and all.

Speaking of which, you could also make your 486 a simple "development" server – you could learn PHP/SQL for a web site with a database back-end. All these things are pretty much easy to learn given enough time and effort. These aren't strictly reserved for the "geeks" anyway. :)

Your 486 could do a lot of things. Just give it enough juice so it can do more. RAM really helps, as well as a 7200-rpm hard drive. A 3D accelerator need not be there, just a decent S3 ViRGE/DX card or something similar. :)

[evenflow]

Thanks gino!

Now I'm very interested. I need to learn some programming languages by next year so I think this fixing up those PCs will be good.

I have windows 95 installed inside them. I think they both have S3 virge 2mb video cards and around 400mb worth of hard disk space. I'm a bit out of cash now so I really want to avoid spending as much as possible. I just want to get one machine up and running first. I can just use both 8mb ram cards on one machine. (though i have to check on what i'm talking about - i haven't tinkered inside a PC for about 2 years now)

Which Linux platform should I install? How do I go about it? I'll really appreciate all the help I can get.

[TNT2bluz]

For functionality's sake, FreeSCO runs off a floppy, 16MB of RAM will make it do wonders despite it being able to run off 8 MB.

Check out FreeSCO.org

[:Þ]

Ever heard of PC Pay It Forward?

[TNT2bluz]

Well it is kinda tough using 486's given that RAM is usually limited to 16MB most often. Even if we stuff it with 32MB of SIMMs I doubt we'll get too far.

[Krakista]

I have two 386's with 4MB still live, collecting phone calls and calculating charges. I am also still collecting PhP 400 monthly on one of them. :)

An alternative to Linux would be to install the old Windows 3.1 and run Office 4.3. If you wanna learn to develop applications, a 486 is good enough for learning and running Delphi 1. Would you believe I was still using a 486 till the first week of January, 2000.

[ginoledesma]

Well, for Linux, you could always try out Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, or SuSE. It'd really be great if you could get your hands on a CD-ROM reader, though, as most recent distros come on CDs.

Red Hat and Mandrake are pretty simple to use, and the rpm package manager can ease installation/upgrading of software packages. So can Debian, with its deb package manager. SuSE uses yggdrasil, whic is pretty much rpm.

When installing Linux, just install the basics – console tools and some networking stuff (samba for instance). A small install can range from 20MB to 500MB+, depending on the number of packages.

I usually install only what I need (text editors, file system tools, etc) and then add what I think I'll need as they come. :)

[mamangbumbero]

Originally posted by ginoledesma
Well, for Linux, you could always try out Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, or SuSE. It'd really be great if you could get your hands on a CD-ROM reader, though, as most recent distros come on CDs.

The alternative is network installation. This is what I typically do when I install RH on CD-drive-less boxes. The Redhat installer CD is typically in my laptop, and 'just do FTP installation. Of course, this would require that you already have a network of some sort, and a machine that has a HTTP, FTP servers (NFS to).

HTH. stay cool.

[sn1ckers_tj]

hm... i wanted to install linux in my 486 pc also.. but i dunno what to do? pwede ba gumamit ng mga word processing ang spreadsheet programs doon. is there any available for linux. kc newbie pa lang ako dito sa linux e. paano naman ang installation and also what are the minimum requirements to run a pc on linux? kc ang dami akong nakitang mga linux.. red hat.. mandrake.. what are they ba?

[evenflow]

I have the same concerns as sn1ckers_tj.

Help pls.

Thanks!

[Pao|o]

Originally posted by sn1ckers_tj
hm... i wanted to install linux in my 486 pc also.. but i dunno what to do? pwede ba gumamit ng mga word processing ang spreadsheet programs doon. is there any available for linux. kc newbie pa lang ako dito sa linux e. paano naman ang installation and also what are the minimum requirements to run a pc on linux? kc ang dami akong nakitang mga linux.. red hat.. mandrake.. what are they ba?

There are productivity software on the Linux platform. Though they are not identicaly to those found in MS Office. You can check out Sun's StarOffice (http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/) for instance. For more information on installation and min sys requirements you should go to your Linux distribution's site.

Redhat, Mandrake, etc. are the various "flavors"/distributions (distro) of Linux. The most popular of the bunch if I recall correctly is RedHat. One of the quickest and painless ways of learning to choose a distro or learn to use it is to look for a friend within your area who's already using it.

[ginoledesma]

Another lighter alternative to StarOffice is AbiSuite. It comes with AbiWord for word processing. Its simple and doesn't use up as much resources as Star Office, I believe. But then again, these require the X Window environment, so having a Pentium 133 with lots of RAM is the least of the requirements. Last I recall using X on a 486, I wasn't too happy.

I'm not aware of console-based word processors ala Wordstar for DOS, but then again, I'm not that aware of many people who still do want to use Wordstar nowadays (at least for the "new" generation).

I'd suggest LaTeX (TeX layouting), but then again, that isn't exactly as easy to use as a typical word processor. LaTeX produces beautiful, typeset-quality documents, but the trade off is that you need to know the document structure beforehand and learn some TeX stuff.

[sn1ckers_tj]

thanks gino and paolo...

anyways, i know only a few ppl that uses linux. saan do you think ako makakahanap ng nga resources parang "how to's" para sa linux?

para mapag-aralan na rin...

[Pao|o]

Originally posted by sn1ckers_tj
anyways, i know only a few ppl that uses linux. saan do you think ako makakahanap ng nga resources parang "how to's" para sa linux?

para mapag-aralan na rin...

What did you say? If you're asking resources you could check out http://www.linux.org/ or the website of your choice of distro. I strongly suggest you talk to the people you know who run Linux. It'll save you a lot of problems in the end.

[ginoledesma]

There are LOTS of people on the PH-Linux-Newbie list (http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie). You're welcome to join the list and exchange with others. :)

As for documentation, there are tons of it on the Internet. :) One place to check out is the Linux Documentation Project (http://www.linuxdoc.org/), which has a collection of HOWTOs, Mini-HOWTOs, Tutorials, Guides, and the like. :)

[Big Man]

Originally posted by TNT2bluz
Hmmm...how much RAM do you have inside them?

We could turn those into cheap word-processing web browsing PCs.

Some other uses:

1) File/Print Server
2) Low-end web server
3) Router
4) RAS

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one turn an old 486 DX2 into a router? Got an old Cyrix DX2-66 here and I am interested in making it something other than a very large doorstop :-)

[mamangbumbero]

Originally posted by Big Man
Excuse my ignorance, but how does one turn an old 486 DX2 into a router? Got an old Cyrix DX2-66 here and I am interested in making it something other than a very large doorstop :-)

Linux Router Project (LRP)
http://www.linuxrouter.org

A networking-centric micro-distribution of Linux.

LRP is small enough to fit on a single 1.44MB floppy disk, and makes
building and maintaining routers, access servers, thin servers, thin clients,
network appliances, and typically embedded systems next to trivial.


If you want to share inet connection (e.g. if you share a small network at home) --

Linux IP Masquerade HOWTO
http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/IP-Masquerade-HOWTO.html

IP Masq is a form of Network Address Translation or NAT that allows internally connected computers that do not have one or more registered Internet IP addresses to have the ability to communicate to the Internet via your Linux box's single Internet IP address. It is possible to connect your internal machines to the Linux host with LAN technologies like Ethernet, TokenRing, FDDI, as well as other kinds of connections such as dialup PPP or SLIP links. This document uses Ethernet for the primary example since it is the most common scenario.

[TNT2bluz]

Originally posted by Big Man
Originally posted by TNT2bluz
Hmmm...how much RAM do you have inside them?

We could turn those into cheap word-processing web browsing PCs.

Some other uses:

1) File/Print Server
2) Low-end web server
3) Router
4) RAS

Excuse my ignorance, but how does one turn an old 486 DX2 into a router? Got an old Cyrix DX2-66 here and I am interested in making it something other than a very large doorstop :-)



http://www.Freesco.org

[dizzyr]

i still use my 486 with dos as my operating system.

i have a dos version of ms works for the office stuff.

i roam the internet with a free, nice, dos based browser called arachne that you can load from a european site.

its fast enough, and i like to fiddle around with the command line.

[Big Man]

Thanks for the tips, guys...Will check those resources out!

[anwarlorenzo]

how about an old K5-133 with abou 16-32mb of ram? will it be enough to run mandrake8 with X ? thanks :)

[evenflow]

I checked the system requirements of the linux mandrake 8.0 and it seems ok naman. I don't think it would run fast though.