[Tiny-tux] [sf-lug] Browser on 486

[Corey McGuire]

Coincidentally, I am building a Linux distro for a Compaq Concerto (486 SX
25mhz) which consists of Gentoo using Uclibc and XFree 3.3.6 (hand rolled,
required for the crap video card).  I'll be using Dillo and FLWM on top of
XFree 3.3.6.

I didn't say earlier because I was stuck on getting the x86 uclibc stages
to build anything (they are 4 years out of date) but thanks to some gentoo
users from Kazakhstan who never update their mirrors, I was able to build
my way up to gentoo's state of the art.  I'll be at noisebridge on friday
night playing with this on the target hardware...if I am so lucky as to
have this stuff actually build.

On Wed, Nov 9, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Corey McGuire <coreyfro at coreyfro.co
am<coreyfro at coreyfro.com>
> wrote:

> You can use old versions of xfree too.  It still builds under new distros.
>
> -- Sent while under the observation of my Android overlord.
> On Nov 9, 2011 2:30 PM, "Corey McGuire" <coreyfro at coreyfro.com> wrote:
>
>> There are other x serves you can use.  Kdrive comes to mind. Its vesa
>> only, which can be a problem on super old hardware
>>
>> -- Sent while under the observation of my Android overlord.
>> On Nov 9, 2011 8:06 AM, "Brian Morris" <cymraegish at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I should be clear that Links2 is a fully graphical Gui browser with jpg
>>> and frame support. It is very good and clean about filtering out modern
>>> fluff. I have used it on newer machines to read news just because of that.
>>> But on old machines it is very pleasantly fast.
>>>
>>> Of course there are mobile browser sites which should definitely not be
>>> ignored. Many can be gotten with a 'm' prefix eg m.wikipedia.org; if
>>> you can hack it a browser can be configured to have an option to identify
>>> as mobile.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Brian Morris <cymraegish at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 3:47 PM, Wladyslaw Zbikowski <
>>>> embeddedlinuxguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Ronald Cotoni <setient at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> > recompiled kernel (the kernel needs to be recompiled to use WAY less
>>>>> ram).
>>>>> >  twm uses ~800kbytes of ram which is completely doable on a 486.
>>>>>
>>>>> Good point, I'm thinking CONFIG_EMBEDDED and
>>>>> CONFIG_CC_OPTIMIZE_FOR_SIZE to start with.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have heard that -Os is actually faster on old machines anyway
>>>> (perhaps due to the low speed of the RAM)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> It would be useful to have lynx/links as a backup, but most people
>>>>> prefer a graphical browser for everyday use. Conceivably one could run
>>>>> X to just launch a single fullscreen browser window and no window
>>>>> manager, if X were absolutely needed for some reason.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> links2 (FORKED from links) works very fast in graphical mode.
>>>>
>>>> it appears that X wants 32MB RAM but maybe some of that in kernel.
>>>>
>>>> I have experience with Mac of same vintage and I can testify that there
>>>> are 72pin simms in larger sizes that work well beyond what the original
>>>> specs said, That is there are 64MB and 128MB card. Useful to have one if
>>>> you can.
>>>>
>>>> In NetBSD the Xserver for Mac is configured to run in Black and White
>>>> which makes it a Lot faster than Xorg which won't do that. I forget if Xorg
>>>> even allows 8 bit color anymore, but anyway you might look into building
>>>> Xfree86.
>>>>
>>>> Don't be afraid of distcc.
>>>>
>>>> Good Luck, break a leg.
>>>>
>>>> Brian
>>>>
>>>> p.s. have a look at tomsrtbt, its fun
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> sf-lug mailing list
>>>>> sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
>>>>> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
>>>>> Information about SF-LUG is at http://www.sf-lug.org/
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Tiny-tux mailing list
>>> Tiny-tux at lists.noisebridge.net
>>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/tiny-tux
>>>
>>>


-- 
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler - Albert
Einstein <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein>
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo Da
Vinci<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Da_Vinci>
Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there
is nothing left to take away - Antoine de Saint
Exupéry<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_de_Saint_Exup%C3%A9ry>
Keep It Simple Stupid - Kelly
Johnson<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_Johnson>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.noisebridge.net/pipermail/tiny-tux/attachments/20111109/69391402/attachment-0001.html>