6 ms·

This is pretty amazing. I remember the first computer I installed Linux 1.x on had 12 megs of ram in around 1992 or 1993? The smallest system I built/ran it on

This is pretty amazing. I remember the first computer I installed Linux 1.x on had 12 megs of ram in around 1992 or 1993? The smallest system I built/ran it on even back then was probably a 386 with 4MB of ram and it was so slow. Kind of amazing that after so much work, even torn down to the bare minimum it can run the modern kernel on such minimal hardware! Edit: probably worth noting that esp32 cores are an order of magnitude higher frequency than those 90s computers.

coupdejarnac 5y ago
12 megs in 92? Fancy.
- macjohnmcc 5y ago
  The computer I was using at work in 92 had a whopping 16mb! It was amazing. It might have been a 386 20MHz (before the cache was added to the systems so was very slow compared to a 25Mhz that came out soon afterwards).
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Lucky you! In 1991, I moved from a Timex 2068 to PC, while the technical school was still using 8086 and 286 systems. A 386SX with 20MHz, 40 MB and 2MB, running Windows 3.0. 16MB was indeed another level!
- codezero 5y ago
  Haha, tell me about it. I think the 4MB upgrade cost around $300 or $400 at the time? Similar to my first 1GB hard disk which came a few years later that cost $500. I was a little spoiled since my dad worked for a telco, so we tended to have decently modern computers and modems for that reason. I was REALLY fancy when I got 128k ISDN in 1996.
  - liketochill 5y ago
    I had 1.1 up /2.2 down mbit Adsl in 1997, was pretty awesome!
    - anthk 5y ago
      Slashdot would fly under Netscape/Opera :p. Under Lynx, it would be like switching off from a bike to an F16.
    - codezero 5y ago
      I worked for an ISP so that my day job was 1mpbs, this was enough to serve 50 concurrent dialup customers back then!
  - CTOSian 5y ago
    my 1st HDD (1992) was a 20MB one ... 20 - MEGA-BYTES (about $300) and quess that I totally screwed it using the debug -mistyped some params- in order to Low-Level format it, luckily I ve managed to return it back.
    - codezero 5y ago
      I worked in a lab once with a five megabyte hard drive from the 80s being used as a door stop, it was huuge, like the size of a large shoebox. They also had a WORM drive from the 80s that I dug up an ad for and it cost $25k for the writer and it could store 4Gb!!! On what looked like a laser disc in a tray. It’s wild the range of available technology at any given time, depending on how much money you have. I do remember being very cautions when I first setup linux because things actually cared about the number of blocks, cylinders, etc, and if you got it wrong things broke in confusing ways.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > 12 megs in 92? Fancy. Absolute luxury! I had 4MB three years later in '95... and in '96 I got the Linux Kernel Internals book which came with a slackware CD, forcing me to purchase my first CDROM drive.
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
You could run a serviceable Linux console on 4MB RAM back then. X11 was also doable though it would be swapping heavily with less than 8MB. Nowadays it would be more practical to add ESP32 support to uClinux and skip the unnecessary performance hit of the VM.
- ttctciyf 5y ago
  > swapping heavily with less than 8MB. No kidding! My intro to X was seeing it load bare-bones on my enthusiast friend's 2M (could have been 4) 386. I think he brought xfontsel up or something and you could see the scanlines being drawn one at a time :) A couple of years later, I was running fvwm2 and a very serviceable desktop at work in 8M though. (AFAIR, anyhow.)
  - anthk 5y ago
    FVWM2 it's even lighter and faster than TWM. Test it if you don't believe me. With the wireframe mode, it's even faster on moving and resizing.
    - bch 5y ago
      Moving and resizing wireframe boxes seems like to me like an ergonomic and technical win - it’s a bit baffling to me why it’s not the default everywhere, no matter what the compute/gfx capabilities.
      - anthk 5y ago
        Yeah, it's crazy how CWM it's crazy fast on my AMD Turion 2 but windows lag a bit upon moving/resizing them. Implementing a wireframe mode on CWM should be dumb easy and a lot of older machines would profit from that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Teknoman117 5y ago

coupdejarnac 5y ago

12 megs in 92? Fancy.

macjohnmcc 5y ago
The computer I was using at work in 92 had a whopping 16mb! It was amazing. It might have been a 386 20MHz (before the cache was added to the systems so was very slow compared to a 25Mhz that came out soon afterwards).
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Lucky you! In 1991, I moved from a Timex 2068 to PC, while the technical school was still using 8086 and 286 systems. A 386SX with 20MHz, 40 MB and 2MB, running Windows 3.0. 16MB was indeed another level!
codezero 5y ago
Haha, tell me about it. I think the 4MB upgrade cost around $300 or $400 at the time? Similar to my first 1GB hard disk which came a few years later that cost $500. I was a little spoiled since my dad worked for a telco, so we tended to have decently modern computers and modems for that reason. I was REALLY fancy when I got 128k ISDN in 1996.
- liketochill 5y ago
  I had 1.1 up /2.2 down mbit Adsl in 1997, was pretty awesome!
  - anthk 5y ago
    Slashdot would fly under Netscape/Opera :p. Under Lynx, it would be like switching off from a bike to an F16.
  - codezero 5y ago
    I worked for an ISP so that my day job was 1mpbs, this was enough to serve 50 concurrent dialup customers back then!
- CTOSian 5y ago
  my 1st HDD (1992) was a 20MB one ... 20 - MEGA-BYTES (about $300) and quess that I totally screwed it using the debug -mistyped some params- in order to Low-Level format it, luckily I ve managed to return it back.
  - codezero 5y ago
    I worked in a lab once with a five megabyte hard drive from the 80s being used as a door stop, it was huuge, like the size of a large shoebox. They also had a WORM drive from the 80s that I dug up an ad for and it cost $25k for the writer and it could store 4Gb!!! On what looked like a laser disc in a tray. It’s wild the range of available technology at any given time, depending on how much money you have. I do remember being very cautions when I first setup linux because things actually cared about the number of blocks, cylinders, etc, and if you got it wrong things broke in confusing ways.
lelanthran 5y ago
> 12 megs in 92? Fancy. Absolute luxury! I had 4MB three years later in '95... and in '96 I got the Linux Kernel Internals book which came with a slackware CD, forcing me to purchase my first CDROM drive.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

You could run a serviceable Linux console on 4MB RAM back then. X11 was also doable though it would be swapping heavily with less than 8MB. Nowadays it would be more practical to add ESP32 support to uClinux and skip the unnecessary performance hit of the VM.

ttctciyf 5y ago
> swapping heavily with less than 8MB. No kidding! My intro to X was seeing it load bare-bones on my enthusiast friend's 2M (could have been 4) 386. I think he brought xfontsel up or something and you could see the scanlines being drawn one at a time :) A couple of years later, I was running fvwm2 and a very serviceable desktop at work in 8M though. (AFAIR, anyhow.)
- anthk 5y ago
  FVWM2 it's even lighter and faster than TWM. Test it if you don't believe me. With the wireframe mode, it's even faster on moving and resizing.
  - bch 5y ago
    Moving and resizing wireframe boxes seems like to me like an ergonomic and technical win - it’s a bit baffling to me why it’s not the default everywhere, no matter what the compute/gfx capabilities.
    - anthk 5y ago
      Yeah, it's crazy how CWM it's crazy fast on my AMD Turion 2 but windows lag a bit upon moving/resizing them. Implementing a wireframe mode on CWM should be dumb easy and a lot of older machines would profit from that.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Teknoman117 5y ago