[seul-edu] Re: Which version of Linux to use?

[Michael Shigorin <mike@lic145.kiev.ua>]

On Wed, Feb 13, 2002 at 04:12:58PM -0600, Art Petrzelka wrote:
> The 2.2 kernel takes up much less memory than the 2.4 kernel. The 2.4 kernel 
> broke a lot of single-floppy Linux setups used for firewalls and routers.
Not exactly true.  Careful configuration of 2.4 *may* give even
smaller kernel; my current one is 818626 bytes of bzImage and
takes less than two megs of RAM itself:

~> dmesg | grep Mem
Memory: 255328k/262080k available (1068k kernel code, 6364k reserved, 297k data, 312k init, 0k highmem)
                                   ^^^^               - - - - - - -   ^^^        ^^^
Aye, my 2.0.3x was 330 to 360k, but it didn't have all AGP and
firewalling stuff I need now (leaving ext3 and reiserfs alone...)

And 2.4 is generally faster -- that _is_ an issue for old
hardware.

> Also, with the newer distributions, a Pentium processor is required. I think 
No; it's Mandrake-based and some other distros, primarily
mostly-desktop-oriented since *noone* really runs whistled
desktop on 486, and extra 20% performance gain is just nice.

> this is a 2.4 kernel requirement, but I am sure that it went into effect in 
No.

> Mandrake 8.0, which introduced the 2.4 kernel into that distribution. I 
> haven't kept up with the Red Hat situation as well.
7.2 would run on i386.

> If you want to use 486 systems, that means a 2.2 kernel, or RedHat 6.2, 
> Mandrake 7.1 or equivalent.
It means "any kernel, redhat, debian, _not_ mandrake" :-)

IIRC Mdk7.1 *was* i586 too -- just look on RPMS on ftp and all
gets to its places ;-)  Mdk originally was "(RH+KDE)*(egcs -mpentium)"
or kinda like that.


PS: may I have a little plug?  Thanks :)

If somebody is interested in "Mandrake meets Debian" on the
desktop or server, pay attention to http://altlinux.com -- we
have strong package repository under APT control, and packages
include reasonable set of educational apps.

Majority of users speaks Russian, but you can find something
personally interesting anyway.

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.ru>
  ------ http://visa.chem.univ.kiev.ua/~mike/

PGP signature