Re: [MLUG] 486SX lease on life?

[Kmicic <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Dave McBride wrote:
> 
> My wife & I (well, me mostly) have become proud owners of our parents'
> old 486SX'es (2). I've heard you can make a workable Linux box with a
> 486DX >= 8 MB. How 'bout the SX?  Would I be wasting my time?

I'd like ot take an opposite stance from everyone else on this. They
definitely are a waste of time and electric energy. Yes, you can set
them up to be a nat box. You may even be lucky and take half a day to
compile a kernel. However, that's probably the only thing you're bound
to get working (and yes, you'll be learning a lot about the old hardware
if you're lucky and the kernel doesn't compile on the first few tries...
but who really cares?). 

Problems you're gonna run into:
1. Outdated software. New soft is likely to be slow or not run at all. I
don't think anyone out there still programs with a 33mhz processor w/o
math coprocessor and 8mb ram in mind anymore. On top of that, this
outdated software is buggy. Linux and all other unixes have gone a loong
way in those past 5 or 6 years since 486's were cool.

2. Hardware is either gonna be impossible to get, or expensive. Or both.
We're talking about motherboards that do not even support PCI video
cards, and I just about busted my nut looking for a PCI vid card a year
ago (thanks to the nameless soul in this group for donating one)! 

3. Documentation like howto's and even other people's troubleshooting
experiences are not written with 486's in mind! Let's say it again: back
when 486's were cool, there was no documentation (ok, I'm exagerrating,
but you get the idea).

4. They're slooow. So will your learning be, because it's trial...
looong wait... and error. It's that loong wait much slower and more
frustrating than on a newer machine.

5. Don't get me wrong. I do have several Pentiums, most of them
ocklocked to near 200Mhz speeds. And they run fine (except when they
die). But I've just spent a coupla days on a nutbuster P200 that wasn't
gonna work (proprietary hardware - yes, thay had this stuff back in the
day), and while it was a satisfying experience to have finally beaten it
into shape, it's nowhere near the amount of time you're gonna spend when
one of your 486's decides to run for the border. 

In short, I'd draw the line of what's worthwile at high end Pentium I's,
and only if they have some respectable amount of RAM already in them.

Paul
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