A new low: Ubuntu 6.06.1 + 75Mhz Pentium + 64Mb + 1.5Gb + Openbox

[K.Mandla]

Just to show it can be done ... again ... this is a Dell Dimension 8200 P75t, service tag 5c7xg.

This is a 75Mhz Pentium machine loaded up with 64Mb of SIMM chips, a massive 1.5Gb Western Digital Caviar hard drive, Ubuntu 6.06.1 and Openbox 3.3.1.

This machine dates back to 1995, and arrived at my doorstep replete with ISA network and sound cards and onboard S3 graphics. I added a slightly newer CDROM because the one in it wouldn't read a 700Mb CD. Best of all, it has PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports; this time I wasn't hamstrung by the absence of a working pointer device.

I yanked everything but the essentials and wiped the drive clean. A server installation took 3.5 hours, with another hour or so to get a GUI in place. This uses ObConf and ObMenu (which means Python, et al, needed installation), XFE as a file manager and the XFCE terminal window for CLI access. Conky is keeping me advised of the system resources.

Bootup takes about three minutes, maybe more. Opening a terminal window takes close to 15 seconds. Everything moves impossibly slow at 75Mhz. It's like having your brain pressed through a bowl of mashed potatoes.

In the end though, we have a 16-bit desktop at 1024x768 with transparent terminal windows. Best of all, the desktop boots on less than 22Mb, the entire installation takes less than 500Mb and you get a relatively working system with what amount to -- literally -- junk parts.

Functional? No.

Practical? No.

Fun? Heck yes!

P.S.: The sharp-eyed viewer will notice that my IP address is 0.0.0.0. The ISA network card was disfunctional, my spare PCI network card is too new for the machine, and I can't find the Intel PRO 100 card I used to get Turbo online.

So how do you get kernel upgrades, install Openbox and Python and upgrade to a full GUI from a server installation without a network connection?

Ah, grasshopper, you must be sneaky, like me. ...

P.P.S.: I think this is about the bottom of the barrel for me. It's getting amazingly hard to find a working, complete system that predates this generation. Perhaps if you have an old 66Mhz Packard-Bell 486DX in the garage you can give it a try, but for myself, I'm out.

[_lynX]

Ubuntu never ceases to amaze me. Very nice!

How long did the install take?

[d3v1ant_0n3]

Great work! Do you chew glass and nails for an encore?

[pelle.k]

kewl!
I have installed dapper on to a pentium pro 133 with 96 mb ram, and that was acctually with xfce as DE. I figure it would have ran a little better with openbox/fluxbox.
75 mhz is hard to beat though!

Why don't you set up a complete "desktop" in bash? w3m/links for browsing, mplayer (framebuffer) watching movies (you can acctually run mplayer with ASCI output if you want to!!), screen/dtach for virtual desktops, mpd for listening to music, autofs for mounting devices, nano as text editor, alsamixer as volume control. set it to boot in 1024x768 in grub. you get the picture. could be pretty sweet. And l33t for that matter.

[raqball]

Love it! Great post

[machoo02]

Fantastic! K.Mandala, I think that you need a better title than 'Ubuntu Master Roaster'. How about: The Reanimator? Keeper of Lost Motherboards? Grand Master Flashmemory? I've got an old toaster and a TI-82, wanna give them a go?

[K.Mandla]

How long did the install take?

Around four hours or so, plus or minus the time it took to troubleshoot and concoct a way of updating and installing a GUI without a network connection. Took me a while, but worked great in the end.

Great work! Do you chew glass and nails for an encore?

... I mean,

Why don't you set up a complete "desktop" in bash? w3m/links for browsing, mplayer (framebuffer) watching movies (you can acctually run mplayer with ASCI output if you want to!!), screen/dtach for virtual desktops, mpd for listening to music, autofs for mounting devices, nano as text editor, alsamixer as volume control. set it to boot in 1024x768 in grub. you get the picture. could be pretty sweet. And l33t for that matter.

Not a bad idea. I've toyed with the idea of a text-only system, if only as a music machine. But it's one of those back-burner projects that just never seems to be a priority. And now I'm all about building debootstrap installs and trying to boot to an iso that's on a hard drive. ... Sigh.

Fantastic! K.Mandala, I think that you need a better title than 'Ubuntu Master Roaster'. How about: The Reanimator? Keeper of Lost Motherboards? Grand Master Flashmemory?

Hmm. ... The Reanimator ... hmm ...

I've got an old toaster and a TI-82, wanna give them a go?

Don't tempt me!

[lazyart]

If you leave the soundcard in, it could cron it's away along as an alarm clock... I'm just curious if you would have to set it 5 minutes ahead so that it can wake you up on time.

[DoctorMO]

My first computer was an 486DX 66Mhz, DOS and windows 3.11, that was back in 1992/3 when those machines cost a fair bit. that died and I didn't get my hands on a working computer until 1999 when I got a Pentium 75Mhz, god bless skips. It originaly has 8MB of RAM but like the one shown here we got it up to 64MB by finding the rare 16MB SIMMs (72pin, 16bit bus each?). but mine had a 500MB HDD upgraded to 4GB later on. it was running Photoshop 6 on a modded version of windows 98 SE, I gave it to a friend who replaced his 8088 in 2002.

I would have loved to have gotten my hands on Linux at that stage, stoped all the mucking about with windows.

[GStubbs43]

Nice... I didn't even know dell made white computers...