[geeks] How low can you go...

[Jonathan Groll]

On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 10:16:09AM +0100, Jochen Kunz wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 18:42:39 -0500 (CDT)
> Lionel Peterson <lionel4287 at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
> > I am researching various OS options for this Dell Inspiron 3000 laptop
> > (P/166 MMX, 144 Meg RAM, 4 Gig HD, bright screen and useable battery)
> I instaled NetBSD on an old laptop. 486DX2-50, 8 MB RAM, 250 MB HD.
> Does the job quite well.

I have about 4 (yes 4!) laptops of similar vintage (486). The idea was
that they would make nice embedded machines, but nowadays you can obtain
much more fun toys like gumstix computers.

Just out of curiosity, how did you get the OS on the system - stiffy
disks? And also what do you use it for? Are you running X also?

I only have one of the machines in use (with netbsd, Jochen is right it
does work well and gave me an easier time than debian). It doesn't run
X, and I only use it for the odd minicom connection.

For me the biggest problem I have is no suitable PC card networking
cards, so the utility of these computers is less if they can't be
networked. Truthfully though, I could have investigated some sort of SLIP link, or
looked into obtaining a suitable network card which will cost more than
the laptop :-(

If anyone seriously has time to waste, or sadistic tendencies, or knows
that their lives are being wasted anyway, contact me off list if you
want one of these 486's. I'm not even sure if they're worth the
hydrocarbons involved in shipping them world wide ;-)

Cheers,
Jonathan