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A related question that is also interesting: What is the oldest laptop that can run an up-to-date, internet connected OS (i.e a museum device with the same OS

by danans 8y ago

A related question that is also interesting: What is the oldest laptop that can run an up-to-date, internet connected OS (i.e a museum device with the same OS from 1991 doesn't count). It doesn't have to have a fancy desktop, but it does have to support connectivity to the internet, and run all the latest security patches and updates. This is different than the article because optimizing productivity isn't an objective, just how long the device can be updated before it becomes impossible to do so anymore, analogous to vintage car maintenance.

danbolt 8y ago
I'm no expert in the matter, but I'd imagine the Lubuntu team has a lot of insight into that[1]. [1] https://docs.lubuntu.net/lubuntu_installation_on_old_computers https://docs.lubuntu.net/lubuntu_installation_on_old_compute...
shereadsthenews 8y ago
I've got a 486-class machine with 32MB of RAM running an up-to-date unix as my firewall. It really depends on what you want the machine to do for graphics and javascript and whatnot.
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  Which unix?
  - shereadsthenews 8y ago
    It evolved from a stripped down Debian originally to Core Linux today. It's just a firewall, so it hardly needs any software.
    - LeoPanthera 8y ago
      Whether Linux is "a unix" I suppose would be a big debate. :)
walrus01 8y ago
I think this could be defined into two categories, things with CLI only, and things that can run a reasonably modern GUI. In the first category you'd have trouble finding a modern linux kernel for 32-bit, and distro, that is actually "i386". Since most things long ago dropped support for CPUs that don't have the i586 extensions and things like MMX/SSE. The 32-bit kernels you can get now, as far as I know, require at least a P166MMX or better to function properly. In the second category, you need something with enough CPU and RAM resources to run a barebones xorg + openbox desktop environment, or xfce, or lxde, or similar. And then the ability to run a browser and terminal applications.
- avhon1 8y ago
  OpenBSD i386 supports "all CPUs compatible with the Intel 80486 or better, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point" https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html NetBSD i386 says "Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen." https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/
  - 5166cc9c39fa61 8y ago
    If you are wondering "why drop support for the 386?," the diff for the removal of 386 support from the Linux kernel is a good read: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=743aa456c1834f76982af44e8b71d1a0b2a82e21 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... tl;dr atomic instructions XADD and CMPXCHG, and serious bugs in many 386 CPUs. Also BSWAP was added in the 486 and speeds some things up a lot.
dfox 8y ago
I used ThinkPad X32 (2004) with 768MB RAM as primary laptop until around 2015 (I switched to X200s because I got one for essentially free, not because the X32 could not keep up) and it was certainly usable for both development work and web browsing including youtube and social media (today it is not). On a similar note our Logistics Manager had used T42 with Windows 7 on daily basis as his only work computer well into second half of 2018. Coincidentally just today I had repurposed that particular T42 to serve as host for various industrial automation related configuration tools.
0815test 8y ago
Debian is wonderful for their old hardware support - they even patch Firefox so it will run on old 32-bit CPU's. You do need a PAE-capable (if 32-bit) CPU, and at least 512MB RAM for a tolerable experience. (You can even surf the web on 512MB, but then the machine will start to swap and feel quite sluggish. For a good web-surfing experience, you'll need 1GB.) For machines that are even older and less capable, you could try getting them to work with TinyCore, but I've not actually tried doing that recently. For really, really old hardware, I suppose FreeDOS is always an option-- they're currently working on version 1.3, so it would theoretically count as something that's "up to date" - although I wouldn't actually trust FreeDOS software to be secure on today's internet. It does have an auto-updater of sorts, though, FDIMPLES.
- avhon1 8y ago
  I run Debian on my OLPC XO-1, which has 256 MB of RAM. Firefox launches, but swaps on all but the simplest of pages. WebKit-based browsers are about the same. Seamonkey uses notably less memory and CPU, but still feels constrained. Netsurf, Dillo, xLinks, and text-based browsers all run fine. In my experience with older Thinkpads, 512 MB is adequate for basic browsing with Firefox, 640 MB allows you to avoid swapping on most heavier pages, and 1GB is enough for even the most intense pages, and is adequate for browsing with numerous tabs open. TinyCore isn't really any lighter or faster than Debian in most respects. It has a tiny install size, but that's because it either downloaded applications from the internet or loads them from .tgz files. It isn't substantially faster or less memory-hungry.
avhon1 8y ago
Contiki, an actively-developed IOT OS, supports 6502-based hardware, including the Apple ][e, Atari XLs, and the Commodore 64. Among other useful applications, it has an http server, email client, an irc client, a web browser, a desktop GUI, and a VNC. The Apple //c is already pretty close to a laptop, and can be turned into a laptop with Apple's the flat panel display and third-party batteries. If laptop-ifying a desktop is okay, there are people who have turned Atari XLs and Commodore 64s into laptops. For all of these ancient computers, you can easily buy or build ethernet (or, more recently, esp8266-based wifi!) adapters. The biggest catch that I know of is that you would need a newer computer to periodically build and flash updates. Contiki is not self-hosting.
zokier 8y ago
Looking back at old Thinkpad models, I wouldn't be all surprised to see Debian Stretch and Firefox on a T20 from 2000, if it had full memory upgrade (to apparently 512M). 600X from 1999 might be the limit (first PIII model). Much beyond that I feel things start to get much sketchier. You might start to run into ISA issues with older CPUs or memory limits. Additionally 90s laptops especially might have had more exotic peripherals which might not be fully supported anymore, if they ever were. Going below 1024x768 resolution would be problematic also. For more practical use I'd draw the line to 2003; with T40/R40 you got USB 2.0 and Wifi, both things that make life much easier. From spec point of view you got Pentium M CPU (with SSE2 and all) and top end models shipped with 512M of RAM (upgradeable to at least 1GB!). That also serves to demonstrate what dramatic progress happened in just 3-4 years. The next 3-4 years also saw fairly significant improvements, T61 from 2007 has SATA (allowing SSD upgrade) and first 64 bit CPUs, supporting up to 8 GB of RAM. That gets you in the realm of mostly practical daily driver.

by danans 8y ago

danbolt 8y ago

I'm no expert in the matter, but I'd imagine the Lubuntu team has a lot of insight into that[1]. [1] https://docs.lubuntu.net/lubuntu_installation_on_old_computers https://docs.lubuntu.net/lubuntu_installation_on_old_compute...

shereadsthenews 8y ago

I've got a 486-class machine with 32MB of RAM running an up-to-date unix as my firewall. It really depends on what you want the machine to do for graphics and javascript and whatnot.

LeoPanthera 8y ago
Which unix?
- shereadsthenews 8y ago
  It evolved from a stripped down Debian originally to Core Linux today. It's just a firewall, so it hardly needs any software.
  - LeoPanthera 8y ago
    Whether Linux is "a unix" I suppose would be a big debate. :)

walrus01 8y ago

I think this could be defined into two categories, things with CLI only, and things that can run a reasonably modern GUI. In the first category you'd have trouble finding a modern linux kernel for 32-bit, and distro, that is actually "i386". Since most things long ago dropped support for CPUs that don't have the i586 extensions and things like MMX/SSE. The 32-bit kernels you can get now, as far as I know, require at least a P166MMX or better to function properly. In the second category, you need something with enough CPU and RAM resources to run a barebones xorg + openbox desktop environment, or xfce, or lxde, or similar. And then the ability to run a browser and terminal applications.

avhon1 8y ago
OpenBSD i386 supports "all CPUs compatible with the Intel 80486 or better, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point" https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html NetBSD i386 says "Any i486 or better CPU should work - genuine Intel or a compatible such as Cyrix, AMD, or NexGen." https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/
- 5166cc9c39fa61 8y ago
  If you are wondering "why drop support for the 386?," the diff for the removal of 386 support from the Linux kernel is a good read: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=743aa456c1834f76982af44e8b71d1a0b2a82e21 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin... tl;dr atomic instructions XADD and CMPXCHG, and serious bugs in many 386 CPUs. Also BSWAP was added in the 486 and speeds some things up a lot.

dfox 8y ago

I used ThinkPad X32 (2004) with 768MB RAM as primary laptop until around 2015 (I switched to X200s because I got one for essentially free, not because the X32 could not keep up) and it was certainly usable for both development work and web browsing including youtube and social media (today it is not). On a similar note our Logistics Manager had used T42 with Windows 7 on daily basis as his only work computer well into second half of 2018. Coincidentally just today I had repurposed that particular T42 to serve as host for various industrial automation related configuration tools.

0815test 8y ago

Debian is wonderful for their old hardware support - they even patch Firefox so it will run on old 32-bit CPU's. You do need a PAE-capable (if 32-bit) CPU, and at least 512MB RAM for a tolerable experience. (You can even surf the web on 512MB, but then the machine will start to swap and feel quite sluggish. For a good web-surfing experience, you'll need 1GB.) For machines that are even older and less capable, you could try getting them to work with TinyCore, but I've not actually tried doing that recently. For really, really old hardware, I suppose FreeDOS is always an option-- they're currently working on version 1.3, so it would theoretically count as something that's "up to date" - although I wouldn't actually trust FreeDOS software to be secure on today's internet. It does have an auto-updater of sorts, though, FDIMPLES.

avhon1 8y ago
I run Debian on my OLPC XO-1, which has 256 MB of RAM. Firefox launches, but swaps on all but the simplest of pages. WebKit-based browsers are about the same. Seamonkey uses notably less memory and CPU, but still feels constrained. Netsurf, Dillo, xLinks, and text-based browsers all run fine. In my experience with older Thinkpads, 512 MB is adequate for basic browsing with Firefox, 640 MB allows you to avoid swapping on most heavier pages, and 1GB is enough for even the most intense pages, and is adequate for browsing with numerous tabs open. TinyCore isn't really any lighter or faster than Debian in most respects. It has a tiny install size, but that's because it either downloaded applications from the internet or loads them from .tgz files. It isn't substantially faster or less memory-hungry.

avhon1 8y ago

Contiki, an actively-developed IOT OS, supports 6502-based hardware, including the Apple ][e, Atari XLs, and the Commodore 64. Among other useful applications, it has an http server, email client, an irc client, a web browser, a desktop GUI, and a VNC. The Apple //c is already pretty close to a laptop, and can be turned into a laptop with Apple's the flat panel display and third-party batteries. If laptop-ifying a desktop is okay, there are people who have turned Atari XLs and Commodore 64s into laptops. For all of these ancient computers, you can easily buy or build ethernet (or, more recently, esp8266-based wifi!) adapters. The biggest catch that I know of is that you would need a newer computer to periodically build and flash updates. Contiki is not self-hosting.

zokier 8y ago

Looking back at old Thinkpad models, I wouldn't be all surprised to see Debian Stretch and Firefox on a T20 from 2000, if it had full memory upgrade (to apparently 512M). 600X from 1999 might be the limit (first PIII model). Much beyond that I feel things start to get much sketchier. You might start to run into ISA issues with older CPUs or memory limits. Additionally 90s laptops especially might have had more exotic peripherals which might not be fully supported anymore, if they ever were. Going below 1024x768 resolution would be problematic also. For more practical use I'd draw the line to 2003; with T40/R40 you got USB 2.0 and Wifi, both things that make life much easier. From spec point of view you got Pentium M CPU (with SSE2 and all) and top end models shipped with 512M of RAM (upgradeable to at least 1GB!). That also serves to demonstrate what dramatic progress happened in just 3-4 years. The next 3-4 years also saw fairly significant improvements, T61 from 2007 has SATA (allowing SSD upgrade) and first 64 bit CPUs, supporting up to 8 GB of RAM. That gets you in the realm of mostly practical daily driver.