this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Edit: I am trying to put linux on a compaq armada 1700.

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[–] refalo@programming.dev 37 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Tiny Core has a minimum CPU of i486DX.

antiX might also work but I couldn't find a minimum CPU requirement listed, just that it has an x86 version.

[–] RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’m running antix on a Pentium 2 with 512mb ram and it’s performing quite nicely

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

This has 32mb

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Is nobody gonna ask?!? Why do you have a pentium 2? I like old hardware as much or more than the next guy but man that’s old. And this from a guy who has a working Commodore 64 🤣

[–] msmc101@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 2 months ago

throwing Linux on ancient hardware is a time honored tradition

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Some time ago I scalvanged some old hardware my old school was gonna throw out.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Oh I get it. I hate to see hardware that could be useful being thrown out. Hence the reason I have stacks of 1TB hard drives with no real use.

I have a long term goal of running my home automation system on that commodore for no other reason than it’s weird. So I get it.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 months ago

I never even thought to ask "why"...

[–] deltapi@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

I've got a 500mhz Celeron from the P3 days, it runs OS/2 and has an ISA EPROM burner card in it.

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

retro enthusiast community has been growing a lot in recent years, especially with youtube channels like 8-bit guy, LGR, MVG and such

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean I guess. Just in my opinion a Pentium 2 is too new to be old and too old to be new. Something like 386 or a Coco2, that’s cool.

I deal with a lot of old hardware in my lab but sometimes it’s just too much trouble. But whatever floats your boat. Last thing I’ll be is judgey about what brings you happiness. I mean I’m currently playing with Proxmox on a 2013 Mac Pro because I think it’s fun. And some people (cough ..cough.. my wife) wonder why 🤣

[–] LeFantome@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I run Proxmox on a 2103 trashcan. It is awesome.

[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Where did you get a trashcan from 2103 you time traveler you.. I want one.

[–] Psiczar@aussie.zone 15 points 2 months ago

Shit, I’ve thrown out stuff several generations newer than that because it was too old.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

The Linux kernel works fine. How much ram do you have? I personally would build a custom image with buildroot.

Other option is Debian

[–] TCB13@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

The option is Debian.

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] rimu@piefed.social 12 points 2 months ago

I think that's going to be more of a limitation than your CPU. Any chance of getting 256+ MB of ram?

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[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Fli4l should. Back when it was new it was meant to fit on a floppy and run on 3'86 machines. It's for running a home router.

[–] aksdb@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Fli4l is still around?! Crazy. I used that back in 2002 or so to turn an old i386 with 3 ISA HP 100Mbit network cards into a router + fileserver combo. Good times.

[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

I have Tiny Core running on a PII 333MHz machine with 128MB of RAM

[–] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 months ago (10 children)
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[–] superkret@feddit.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

May I ask what you want to do with it?

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I wanted to create an abomination, but it's to old. I'll have to "upgrade" to a newer machine.

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

With 32MB of RAM you can't go far. The Linux kernel barely runs on it, and that's just the kernel. NetBSD also has a minimum requirement of 32GB of RAM. One other thing you can do is try to run BeOS (not Haiku, but BeOS). It could run on 32MB of RAM (it still preferred 64 MB, but it could run on 32 too).

[–] ampersandcastles@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago

Damn, NetBSD really upped their ram requirements 😂

[–] data1701d@startrek.website 2 points 2 months ago

With 48 MB, you can, though. That’s what I booted 5.17 on a Pentium II with once to get a basic busybox terminal. I think I did an experiment once with qemu and found the minimum to be somewhere in the high 30s or low 40s.

[–] ulkesh@beehaw.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago

Debian still supports Pentium IIs. They axed support for the i586 architecture (original Pentium) a few years back, but Debian 12 (current stable, AKA Bookworm) still supports i686 chips like the P2.

Not sure how the rest of the hardware in that Compaq will work.

See: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.en.html

[–] ashughes@feddit.uk 3 points 2 months ago

As others have suggested, the only option I can think of is Tinycore but you’ll need to get the Microcore version (aka Core ISO with no GUI). This should run on 32MB RAM but leaves you very little headroom with a very barebones install, and obviously no GUI of any kind. [Source]

I looked up the Compaq Armada 1700 and saw that it came with 32MB soldered with one slot available to expand up to 160MB. It’s a long shot, but if you can find a working 32MB, 64MB or 128MB memory module for this you should be able to run TinyCore with a GUI. Adding more RAM would also open up options like Slackware.

It’s not clear to me if Debian will work or not, even with maxing out the RAM in this computer. There is a low memory install mode you could try but I think even that requires at least 256MB which is beyond the theoretical maximum this computer supports.

If all you want to do is prove to yourself that you can install Linux on this computer then Microcore might be worth a try. If you want a usable system with a GUI then you’re probably going to have to add more RAM.

This could be a long shot, but so long as you do NOT connect it to the internet, you could try sourcing a Linux distribution from back when this computer was released, I’m thinking Redhat Linux (before RHEL and Fedora was a thing) or Debian a very old version of Debian. However even if you do succeed in this it’s probably not going to be usable.

Good luck!

[–] muhyb@programming.dev 3 points 2 months ago

Not Linux but Haiku would run on it I think.

[–] TCB13@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

Frankly the power consumption of that thing x performance delivered will be just bad. Take for example this example, a more modern Pentium D vs a Pi:

If you don't have any kind of attachment to the machine, just trash it, get a Pi or a second hand 8th Gen i5 HP Mini for around 80$ and enjoy. If you do have an attachment to the machine you may as well run some OS from the same era. https://winworldpc.com/library/operating-systems

[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 22 points 2 months ago

I'm doing it for the memes

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[–] bloodfart@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Spend $12 on this memory module and you’re g2g for almost anything.

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