> I used to use an old 386 with 4mb of ram with slackware but I recently
> stopped when I got my pentium machine. I would guess that 1% of linux users
> still have such an arrangement.
>
> The Linux community seems to take pride in bringing old hardware to life
> again. With a 2.0.3x kernel I've heard that a 386 makes a nice and very
> cheap ip masq box and even a router. I would be sad to have that stop or
Currently my 386 box (pokey) runs 2.0.34 for exactly that purpose.
Gives the four people at home access to the net without blocking any
one person's access. Great for solving fights. :-) This machine is
an 80386DX33, no FPU (although I am looking), 8MB RAM... It was one
of the *original* DX motherboards by DataTech... the 64k cache
control is actually implimented with discrete logic! Once it's up and
running it's great, but it takes well over 2 hours to compile the
kernel. :-)
Indeed the Linux community SHOULD be DAMN proud to allow old hardware
such as this to function *extremely* well for these kinds of
purposes. I'm tired of the steady chanting from the other camps:
"bigger faster bigger faster bigger faster" to get much the same
performance as their OLD software did on their OLD hardware!
The only complaint I've had with my old '386 is that every few days it
refuses to let anyone log in (connection is established but nothing is
ever sent) or alternatively, if you do get to log in, it *thinks* that
it is making the modem dial but in fact the modem isn't doing
anything. I'll have to try to reinstall Slack again to see if this
cures it.
Andrew
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