Subj : FreeBSD
To   : David Drummond
From : Charles Angelich
Date : Sat Nov 17 2001 08:31 pm

12333394ac3e
unix



Hello David - 

JB>>> I played with a 0.95 on a 386, compiled things like
JB>>> nethack(game), zmodem, unarj, but with only 4 megs didn't
JB>>> run X, although I had a friend who had 8 megs and a
JB>>> X-terminal on his 20Mhz 386Sx. this was like 1994 IIRC. 

CA>> AFAIK any release v 1.x was alpha, unstable, and
CA>> marginally useful. 

DD> Hmmm we ran an Internet gatway/proxy for the LAN at work on
DD> Slackware 1.1.19 for a year or so without any issues. It
DD> had drivers for all of the hardware of the day - the VESA
DD> SCSI card being the oddest thing in the machine. The rest
DD> was standard PC clone stuff. 

I don't think it is a coincidence that no `RedHat' poppped up
until more recently when LINUX became somewhat more
substantial. In the begining it was a novelty not considered as
good as MINIX as I recall it.

CA>>>> I have followed every lead for years to their dead ends.
CA>>>> People who claim to have put linux onto 386's suddenly
CA>>>> lose their only copy of the setup or develop amnesia and
CA>>>> can't quite recall how they did it or even what distro
CA>>>> they used. 

DD> It was so long ago, who keeps old software beyond a short
DD> test period when they upgrade?. 

You're agreeing with my description of the smoke. Now for the
mirrors. 

DD> I remember the version/distro we used (see above). 

Ah ... here are the mirrors. ;-) 

JB>>> I used SLS and installed everything but X 

CA>> Release v0.95 was something like a 900K image file so
CA>> `everything' wasn't much compared to the 500-800meg recent
CA>> versions. I'm not certain X was even available at that
CA>> time? 

CA>> I should've prefaced my comment with "recent versions of
CA>> LINUX " but as I said, early release were unstable and
CA>> very fussy about hardware. 

DD> One uses older hardware" with older versions. Drivers were
DD> there for the general run of the mill stuff.

Saying "Drivers were there for the general run of the mill stuff."
is the same thing as saying they weren't there for everyone.  It's
agreeing with what I said just with a `spin' on it.

The drivers weren't there in my memories of earlier LINUX. 

>
>        ,                          ,
>      o/      Charles.Angelich      \o       ,
>     <|                              |>  __o/
>     / >          USA, MI           < \   __\__
 

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