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

[Leon Brooks <leon@brooks.fdns.net>]

On Thursday 14 February 2002 17:32, Michael Shigorin wrote:
>> 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.

Well... a bit more than 20% in most cases. And some people take the trouble 
on top of that to recompile their own kernel, optimised specifically for 
their particular CPU.

>> 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" :-)

Well, no, it's not just the kernel. All of the apps on 7.0 and beyond are 
Pentium-optimised. My gateway machine is a 486SLC40 running an updated 
Mandrake 6.0 but even then I had to make my own kernel ('coz 486SLC means 
``tarted-up 386''). However, you can grab the SRPMs and rebuild the whole lot 
for 486 (or 386 even) in a matter of hours (maybe a day or two, depending on 
your hardware) on a decent machine with one script.

> 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.

Version 5.3 was the last of those. It's _considerably_ different now, which 
is mostly a good thing.

Cheers; Leon