Re: [school-discuss] Knoppix vs. Freeduc vs. ???

[Jan Wilson <corocom@btl.net>]

* Dave Prentice <prentice@instruction.com> [030605 16:58]:
> <begin rant> One of the big selling points of Linux I keep hearing
> is that it will run on older hardware. In fact, two years ago I was
> able to load RH 6.2 on some 486s with as little as 24meg of RAM, 512k
> of video RAM, and 500meg hard drives. They didn't have blazing
> performance, but at least they worked and were cheap.

I would agree with you that the production, mainstream Linux
distributions have moved away from that "runs on older hardware"
advantage, in favor of more graphical capabilities, more daemons
running, etc.  I'm not sure that's so bad, though.

>     What's happened since then? It seems like every Linux distro has
> become as much of a resource hog as Windows. Now they all want at
> least 128 meg of RAM and 2 gig hard drive space. I still have old
> machines that use SIMMs. It's a stretch to try to get them up to 64meg
> of RAM, let alone buying bigger hard drives.

Well, these distros have moved away from lean and mean toward user
comfort, in an attempt to win over those who basically like the way
Windows and similar GUI-oriented operating systems work.  The good
news about this is that Linux can compete pretty well on the desktop
now.  The bad news is a lower range of tolerance for older hardware.

>     I wonder if Freeduc is in this category of "resource hog." I spent
> almost 4 frustrating hours today trying to load it on 3 separate IBM
> P-133s with 64 meg of RAM and 2gig of HD space. It would boot from CD
> OK, but only got a little way before giving kernel panics. It never
> got around to giving me the option to install to hard drive. Will
> freeduc even run on less than 128meg?

Think about what you are asking here.  The Knoppix-based systems are
designed to be compressed onto a single CD and run almost entirely in
RAM (they will use a swap file on the HD if they detect it and it
looks OK to use).  So it's hard to make a full system like that work
in much less than 128 MB.  If you select IceWM instead of KDE they
SHOULD work in 64 MB, but the combination of CD and P-133 is going to
make a very slow system at best.

>     Yes, I know that you can set up a thin client network if you have
> the resources and expertise, but I have neither. I tried and tried
> with K12LTSP but never could make it work, and haven't been able to
> find anybody to give me local support. All I want is some distro that
> will be useful to students and will still run as a standalone on old,
> limited hardware. Is there no hope for me?
> </end rant>

That's exactly what I would (and do) do.  I use Knoppix and mainstream
distros for fairly modern systems, and LTSP for older, very limited
systems.  It allows a school to buy one (or a few) fairly fast
server(s) loaded with RAM, but still use the older computers as
workstations.

Also, by choosing one of the many lean distributions, you can install
Linux on an older computer.  But of course you won't have the same
capabilities.  What's great about Linux and open source to me is that
we DO have so many choices.  Of course, we would all like it cheap,
fast, powerful, and easy.  You're lucky to get two out of the four.
;-)

-- 
Jan Wilson, SysAdmin     _/*];          corocom@btl.net
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