8 ms·

Saving Linux

23 points by voytec 3y ago

orionblastar 3y ago
If Linux does not support your old devices try: https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://reactos.org/ https://reactos.org/ https://aros.sourceforge.io/ https://aros.sourceforge.io/ Or support OSFree until they can release an alpha: https://osfree.org/ https://osfree.org/ No need to go back to Windows.
- BSDobelix 3y ago
  Or the real "OS/2" -> https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/ https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/
sys42590 3y ago
Why not use one of the *BSD? E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/
- valeg 3y ago
  Second that. OpenBSD is a good choice as well. No reason at all to burden GNU/Linux with all that legacy stuff.
  - badsectoracula 3y ago
    But "burdening" *BSDs is fine? :-P
    - guenthert 3y ago
      OpenBSD might work accidentally, but NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware. Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though.
      - badsectoracula 3y ago
        > NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware So does Linux (486SX is the minimum supported CPU), there is nothing inherent to NetBSD about supporting old hardware than the developers wanting to do so. > Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though. I can think a lot of reasons, e.g. keeping them useful. While there are many things that old hardware cannot do, there are things it can do as long as there is software to provide the functionality. AFAICT the article isn't asking writing new software that runs on the old hardware, it is asking to let existing software that could run on the old hardware remain accessible.
        Almondsetat 3y ago
        BSDs are complete operating systems, Linux is just a kernel
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  So does Linux[0], except some 486SX variants. You are going to find way more software for Linux to make your computer practically useful and pretty much all information out there is for Linux, so unless you have a reason to explicitly prefer BSD, it is much better to install Linux than any of the BSDs. In fact chances are Linux will support your old hardware better than most, if not all, BSDs. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu?h=v6.7 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...
BSDobelix 3y ago
I use FreeBSD as my mainsystem for Labtop, Workstation, RPi and Server's. And for Laptop's 15 years is the perfect age for FreeBSD ;) But if you really want Linux: https://www.adelielinux.org/download/ https://www.adelielinux.org/download/
TacticalCoder 3y ago
Are modern Linux distros really that hard to get running on older systems? What'd be the main issues? I don't really get the complain of TFA: IIUC it's not that Linux, the kernel, doesn't support 15 years+ old hardware but that some software that used to be shipped aren't shipped anymore by default, and so the only way to get these running is to compile them from source, which is not always possible due to missing repositories? I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? > Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As far as you are concerned, they are gone forever. Darn... I threw a lot of these away recently (old CDs with early Linux ISOs). Even much older stuff. Are these really gone forever? There has to be some data hoarders keeping them no? I'll be careful if I find older CDs: I may rip them and store them on a BluRay for another 50 years (not kidding).
- adastra22 3y ago
  > I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? Unlikely. Note that while Debian has a "i386" distribution, it actually targets at least a Pentium Pro. The 32-bit Intel architecture release ought to be labeled i586, but that ship has sailed. I'm sure Gentoo would run though.
- AHTERIX5000 3y ago
  Debian at least offers old ISOs: https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  > I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? AFAIK Debian doesn't support 486, but Gentoo does have a i486 variant specifically for CPUs before the Pentium Pro[0] [0] https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/#x86 https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/#x86.
adastra22 3y ago
> I wrote an article a while ago that was critical of Linux developers who refuse to maintain distributions that run on computers that are more than about 15 years old. > Some developers said I should just create my own Linux distribution. I would love to. Unfortunately, that is out of the question for a couple of reasons. First, I just don't have the time. I am too busy... There's a certain lack of self-awareness in this article. Maybe don't be critical of open-source developers for not supporting your ancient hardware, when you lack the capability to do so yourself?
- anthk 3y ago
  Also a distro like hyperbola will run on 15yo machines with new software and current TLS/SSL protocolos and browsers from lynx to luakit.
- guenthert 3y ago
  > Linux developers who refuse to maintain distributions that run on computers that are more than about 15 years old. I for one like to express my gratitude to this unnamed hero. (I ought to be careful with my words as I actually have an Sandy-Bridge based server, but really expecting software updates on such elderly hardware is nuts as would be to expose it to the Internet)
- donatj 3y ago
  > Maybe don't be critical of open-source developers for not supporting your ancient hardware You must be like 20. I assure you when you reach 40, a 15 year old device doesn't seem ancient. It's something you bought a couple years ago.
  - microtonal 3y ago
    2009 was the year I bought my first iPhone and sported a white MacBook. Sure seems like aeons ago.
  - Chris2048 3y ago
    I'm nearly 40. For technology, 15 years is a long time.
djha-skin 3y ago
> One significant problem exists for all of the above Linux ISO's. They only contain the applications that actually come in the ISO files. Fedora and other larger distributions, especially those of 15 years ago, stand out brightly in my memory as distributions which offered full package management through DVDs and CDs. Fedora and Mandrake distributed something like six CDs back when I was a teenager, all full of RPMs.
boomboomsubban 3y ago
>Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As far as you are concerned, they are gone forever. I don't particularly care about ancient Linux ISOs, but I bet they're some of the best archived files on the internet. For a start, larger distros do maintain archives. Here's Debian's and Arch's https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ And beyond that, the hobbyist archivists are on top of that. Many people act on the joke that their torrents are all Linux isos, and the other hoarders are going to save things they use like a Linux iso. Hell, I'd bet every one listed is on the internet archive. And if not, the author could quickly fix the issue.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  There are plenty of sites with old distros. I would like to point out oldlinux.org, because of the easy to remember domain and a smallish, but nice collection. Not a least it has Slackware 1.1.2, which will always have a special place in my heart.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  Yea, for sure. These old linux isos are heavily mirrored, and many also has bittorrent mirrors. Here's another one, funded by Swedish government, run by Stockholm University): https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/ https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/
- mathiasgredal 3y ago
  Sure, but how useful is that when you can’t install any packages, since the package repositories only host packages for supported versions. When a distro goes EOL, the package repositories typically move to the next supported version and delete all of the old packages.
  - dsr_ 3y ago
    Debian has all of the packages in archives. https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive
anthk 3y ago
Slackware mirrors often had full repos and cd sets from 1.0 to the current one. On runing modern software: - guix for GNU libre supporters like me, albeit it's slower and it might not be supported, but it can be installed by hand. - pkgsrc. Yes, you can use pkgsrc under GNU/Linux. Or better, hyperbola GNU will maybe run under a Pentium IV with SSE2 and, with care, under a Pentium II-III with IceWM, Rox and a cli/TUI based setup except for sxiv, dillo and mplayer.
cracrecry 3y ago
There are multiple reasons to use Linux, probably as many as Linux users. The author believes everybody is like him and is not. Over time all software becomes bloated as it is cheaper to buy hardware than pay developers. In the past paying people was worth it because you could do with cheap machines what only very expensive machines could do. Now cheap machines are very powerful. In the Open source Arena it is also way cheaper in things that are not money: People are doing it in their free time and they do not want to pay with their free time nasty bugs as a result of writing low level instead of high level, functional and so on. People must not forget that writing low level code, like in the past, is way more efficient but comes at a huge price: nasty bugs that are psychologically very taxing for a developer. Huge delays and overcosts. As a company we write functional programming/high level code that is from 20 times to 100x more inefficient than what we could get with low level programming. We ship it anyway because: 1. It works and it is good enough. 2. Nobody will notice the difference and pay us for the enormous amount of work that will take to do it low level. There are things in which we do very low level programming, but it gives us an edge over the competition, and someone pays for the work done.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> AKA the monster that Bill Gates created Yes, the monster what allowed every housewife to use a computer without obtaining a CS degree first. Which paved the way for the residential Internet demand and in turn allowed the smartphone revolution. > I have been saving Linux ISO's for more than fifteen years Lists ISO for the previous Debian and Ubuntu. Sure, Zenlive is old, but why even mention almost modern and the most popular distros? > Unfortunately, they cannot be installed years later because the repositories generally no longer exist! Yes, this is a problem with any OS with network repos as the default source. It's way easier (most of the time) on 'that monster' because the program installers are self contained. But this guy's method of backing up is... let's say unconventional. > Perhaps a reader will point out a better method in the comments below Whatever it could be for the OSes with the repositories? The world wonders.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  >> Unfortunately, they cannot be installed years later because the repositories generally no longer exist! > Yes, this is a problem with any OS with network repos as the default source. It's way easier (most of the time) on 'that monster' because the program installers are self contained. Not disagreeing, just adding some notes from memory :) So, linux distros like SUSE used to be several CD:s containing the entire repository, and yet more CD:s with the src packages. You normally would just use the first cd to install a base system, and then connect it to the online package repository. See here for openSUSE 10 (2006): http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/distribution/10.2/iso/cd/ http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/distribution/1... The installation even set up the package manager with the cdimage as source and you would have to edit the package manager config in order to even get updates over the internet.
  - anthk 3y ago
    I bought a 3-4 DVD set of Debian Sarge with near everything. Most of the commenters (and the blog poster) have absolutely no clue on how GNU/Linux was shipped before Ubuntu, or even the Debian CD archive, or the Slackware ISO dumps + full repo backups, there are even packages from Alienbob for older releases.
Dwedit 3y ago
"...tried and failed multiple times to install it onto the Precision M20's "hard drive" (actually a micoSD card on an IDE-to-microSD-card adapter). Every time, the installation looked successful. I even checked it with Gparted, which showed that the partition had been created, made bootable, and data had been written to it. Then, when I rebooted, no partition existed!" Some MicroSD cards fail in a "Read Only" mode where they pretend to accept new data, but don't actually write anything.
fao_ 3y ago
> Those who would like more details about the growing dysfunctionality of Linux and why it is the way it is may want to watch this YouTube video. Some context before I give my perspective: I've been using Linux since before the 2010s, I ran Arch Linux for about 7 years solid, and I've used probably about 100 or 200 distributions in total (I'm an ex-distrohopper). For a 2 or 3 year stretch I used Alpine Linux and compiled most things from source. I keep "old" hardware about (I have a trusty X200 in the corner as I'm typing this), but have contact with baby boomers and do technical support from them sometime. From my perspective, Linux is the strongest it's ever been. The joke of "X is the year of Linux on the desktop" is evergreen, but actually seems to be approaching true. I can literally pick a random top-10 distribution, install it for someone, and the likelihood of them encountering major breaking bugs in wifi drivers, sound, graphics cards, etc. is vanishingly low and getting lower by the year -- which is shocking given how regular these things were even as late as 2018. In terms of compatibility and usability Linux is probably the strongest it's ever been. The decades long joke that was Pulseaudio has been replaced with a solid system. Most of the graphics driver weirdness that was the 2010s has been fixed through the efforts of the mesa team with help from Valve's Big Pockets. > Linux developers' responses clearly show that Linux is no longer an operating system for computer hobbyists who want to keep their beloved vintage or near-vintage computers alive. Instead, it has become an operating system that developers see as a way of boosting their careers. I think this is an incredibly specific perspective that is ignorant of... the majority of users. Sure, in the late 2000s Linux was seen (by Windows users mainly) as nothing more than a system that you'd slap on a shitty old computer to keep it working. But from the start Linux was never actually intended to be relegated to that position, and much of the actual developer and userbase was and has been driven by corporate interest in Linux-on-the-Server and, more recently, Valve's Linux-on-the-Handheld. Linux tends to be flexible to be a "what you make of it", but that has ALWAYS involved someone actually putting in the effort and time and energy (and often money) to make it into that. It's not really OP's fault if there are no good modern distributions to stick on something and make it work (Even though, uh, as we shall see, there are. Lol), but it's kind of weird to expect that expense from someone else when OP seems to be completely aware of how much goes into that in the first place. > Given that few Linux developers are willing to provide old versions of their distributions on line any more From my memory some distributions that aren't really a Thing anymore but were used for old computers were Knoppix and Puppy. And, oh look. Knoppix versions from 2017 are still around: http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/ http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/ A quick check and... Puppy is still around and going strong?! Also, it seems like Puppy versions from years ago are still around too (this was 1 click to grab the current iso and a short edit of the URL to go back up in the directory tree LOL) - https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/ https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/ And... oh shit, wait- what's that! https://distro.ibiblio.org/ https://distro.ibiblio.org/ seems to have a metric (expletive)-tonne of distributions going back to uhh, looking at the i486 Zenwalk directory... 2006? is 20 years not good enough?? > Now that many of my old PC's are aging out of Linux [CITATION NEEDED] > probably because it uses light-weight desktop environments like IceWm that are rather old and were never standardized to the extent of the more modern environments Just use Slackware or Puppy and install LXDE...? What exactly is the problem here :/
redder23 3y ago
Facts: #1 Linux support for old hardware in general is incredibly good, better then any other modern OS AFAIK. #2 Running a 15 year old Laptop makes zero sense, you can not be that poor. I use gaming rigs as my PCs for everything and I one of mine was 8 years old at some point and I still sold it for 250€ and bought a new one. There are budget laptops that run faster, eat less power bill that any 15 year old device. Of the specifics of your device do not play will with distros its just another good reason on the top of the list why an upgrade is past time. Demanding devs to maintain stuff for 15 year old hardware makes no sense, if something is there and still works and can be "maintained" with little effort while keeping it in place its another story. But again generally speaking I think Linux, the kernel has incredibly good support for an insane amount of obscure and ancient hardware out there.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > you can not be that poor. I don't think that the assumption that people run old hardware because they can't afford new is generally valid.
JohnFen 3y ago
Yes, this is one of a few reasons why I've begun the effort to shift away from Linux entirely. Sadly, the Linux ecosystem keeps evolving in a way that makes it less useful and desirable to me.
kkfx 3y ago
Few notes: - supporting old hw with modern software tend to be pointless, let's say you can found anything compiled for the relevant arch, you got a WM and a set of app deployed flawlessly, then? A modern web-app + a modern WebVM improperly named browser for legacy reasons it's simply way too heavy for the iron. Specially for the graphic part, and most of today's activities happen on web-apps demanding modern WebVM. Oh, of course you can write your thesis in LaTeX, but not with Zotero, you can run Emacs, but it will be painfully slow and so on. You can use the machine as a homeserver for stuff who do not demand much BUT that's means consuming much more energy than a modern raspi for similar performances... In the end it's just about showing old hw and something running on it; - in the aforementioned terms all you need is just an old ISO image packaged with as much as software of that time you can, it's relatively doable, but it waste resources just to show an old system, without practical usage, it's normal most distros do not support such scenarios, it's more about some heritage foundations... Now the part I agree: - most modern OSes, not just GNU/Linux are designed for another era, not a modern one, but a very ancient one, I mean in 2024 decades after the first release of NixOS or Guix system having classical installers who take care of partitioning than spreading some archives on a fs tree it's absurd. A archaic design from the '80s; - most modern package managers are born after the '80s, but they lag behind '80s tech. They are just archives of files to be spread in a tree. Having something that better map source and binaries crafting a system in code it's very needed and missed on most current OSes; - most file systems are archaic, we need to go past beyond files and directories and even if in the past some have done so, like to a certain extent BeOS, we still have even users who manage their information in files & folders. The above aspects are not much interested for keep up old iron but to evolve in modern time, actual state of tech is TERRIBLE for the actual state of possible tech we have.
- anthk 3y ago
  Who cares if they are ancient; they work with ease and they are easy to set up and backup, something the gen-z misses terribily and fails to understand over and over reinventing the wheel.
  - kkfx 3y ago
    They are definitively NOT easy to manage: - you can't know their current state, since anything is deployed one command at a time, and then other commands to upgrade and so on, while OSes like NixOS/Guix Systems are just a network of symlinks rebuilt from a config upon any change; - you can't replicate them from scratch, even if you automate, no matter if Ansible/Salt, homegrown scripts, fog or something else, a proper replication demand a gazzilion of things to be manually prepared from a custom ISO or the current official ISO + all you change and you need to keep anything up, again NixOS/Guix System replicate from the config and making a custom ISO as a helper is just few lines of the very same language config; - classic package manager badly accept user modifications, something have done for sources (FreeBSD ports, Gentoo/make.conf and so on) but essentially nothing for binaries, just some rigid and limited automation by Debian with "alternatives" and "configure", again a nightmare to get something custom; - backups? There is NO DAMN REASON to backup an OS, data of course, no matter if homes or /var stuff BUT definitively not an OS, it must be reconstruct and frequently since anything derive more or less quickly and to be reliable you need to been able to replicate with the minimum effort. Just try to compare a NixOS/NixOps managed infra vs a RH/kickstarted or Debian/Preseeded one). Gen-Z probably do not even know what's a file https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... but that's a totally different matter, classic systems including current commercial big ones are archaic crap.
anonymousiam 3y ago
There are plenty of old Linux distributions that run on old hardware. The only reasons to run a modern distro are new features and security fixes.
simonblack 3y ago
Slackware goes back all the way to Slackware-1.01. I'd say that slackware versions 8 to 10 would be about the right vintage for your machines. Yes those versions are old, but the packages worked then and they will work now. I think that what the OP actually wants is a Boeing 747 powered by a rotary aircraft engine from WW1. And that's a completely different barrel of fish.

23 points by voytec 3y ago

If Linux does not support your old devices try: https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://www.haiku-os.org/ https://reactos.org/ https://reactos.org/ https://aros.sourceforge.io/ https://aros.sourceforge.io/ Or support OSFree until they can release an alpha: https://osfree.org/ https://osfree.org/ No need to go back to Windows.

BSDobelix 3y ago
Or the real "OS/2" -> https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/ https://www.arcanoae.com/arcaos/

sys42590 3y ago

Why not use one of the *BSD? E.g. the newest NetBSD still supports i486 class processors: https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/ https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/i386/

valeg 3y ago
Second that. OpenBSD is a good choice as well. No reason at all to burden GNU/Linux with all that legacy stuff.
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  But "burdening" *BSDs is fine? :-P
  - guenthert 3y ago
    OpenBSD might work accidentally, but NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware. Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though.
    - badsectoracula 3y ago
      > NetBSD intentionally supports old hardware So does Linux (486SX is the minimum supported CPU), there is nothing inherent to NetBSD about supporting old hardware than the developers wanting to do so. > Now why someone wants to run current software on museum-piece hardware is quite beyond me though. I can think a lot of reasons, e.g. keeping them useful. While there are many things that old hardware cannot do, there are things it can do as long as there is software to provide the functionality. AFAICT the article isn't asking writing new software that runs on the old hardware, it is asking to let existing software that could run on the old hardware remain accessible.
      - Almondsetat 3y ago
        BSDs are complete operating systems, Linux is just a kernel
badsectoracula 3y ago
So does Linux[0], except some 486SX variants. You are going to find way more software for Linux to make your computer practically useful and pretty much all information out there is for Linux, so unless you have a reason to explicitly prefer BSD, it is much better to install Linux than any of the BSDs. In fact chances are Linux will support your old hardware better than most, if not all, BSDs. [0] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/arch/x86/Kconfig.cpu?h=v6.7 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/lin...

BSDobelix 3y ago

I use FreeBSD as my mainsystem for Labtop, Workstation, RPi and Server's. And for Laptop's 15 years is the perfect age for FreeBSD ;) But if you really want Linux: https://www.adelielinux.org/download/ https://www.adelielinux.org/download/

TacticalCoder 3y ago

Are modern Linux distros really that hard to get running on older systems? What'd be the main issues? I don't really get the complain of TFA: IIUC it's not that Linux, the kernel, doesn't support 15 years+ old hardware but that some software that used to be shipped aren't shipped anymore by default, and so the only way to get these running is to compile them from source, which is not always possible due to missing repositories? I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? > Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As far as you are concerned, they are gone forever. Darn... I threw a lot of these away recently (old CDs with early Linux ISOs). Even much older stuff. Are these really gone forever? There has to be some data hoarders keeping them no? I'll be careful if I find older CDs: I may rip them and store them on a BluRay for another 50 years (not kidding).

adastra22 3y ago
> I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? Unlikely. Note that while Debian has a "i386" distribution, it actually targets at least a Pentium Pro. The 32-bit Intel architecture release ought to be labeled i586, but that ship has sailed. I'm sure Gentoo would run though.
AHTERIX5000 3y ago
Debian at least offers old ISOs: https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
badsectoracula 3y ago
> I still have my 386 and 486 somewhere: can't I install, say, a modern Debian on these? AFAIK Debian doesn't support 486, but Gentoo does have a i486 variant specifically for CPUs before the Pentium Pro[0] [0] https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/#x86 https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/#x86.

adastra22 3y ago

> I wrote an article a while ago that was critical of Linux developers who refuse to maintain distributions that run on computers that are more than about 15 years old. > Some developers said I should just create my own Linux distribution. I would love to. Unfortunately, that is out of the question for a couple of reasons. First, I just don't have the time. I am too busy... There's a certain lack of self-awareness in this article. Maybe don't be critical of open-source developers for not supporting your ancient hardware, when you lack the capability to do so yourself?

anthk 3y ago
Also a distro like hyperbola will run on 15yo machines with new software and current TLS/SSL protocolos and browsers from lynx to luakit.
guenthert 3y ago
> Linux developers who refuse to maintain distributions that run on computers that are more than about 15 years old. I for one like to express my gratitude to this unnamed hero. (I ought to be careful with my words as I actually have an Sandy-Bridge based server, but really expecting software updates on such elderly hardware is nuts as would be to expose it to the Internet)
donatj 3y ago
> Maybe don't be critical of open-source developers for not supporting your ancient hardware You must be like 20. I assure you when you reach 40, a 15 year old device doesn't seem ancient. It's something you bought a couple years ago.
- microtonal 3y ago
  2009 was the year I bought my first iPhone and sported a white MacBook. Sure seems like aeons ago.
- Chris2048 3y ago
  I'm nearly 40. For technology, 15 years is a long time.

djha-skin 3y ago

> One significant problem exists for all of the above Linux ISO's. They only contain the applications that actually come in the ISO files. Fedora and other larger distributions, especially those of 15 years ago, stand out brightly in my memory as distributions which offered full package management through DVDs and CDs. Fedora and Mandrake distributed something like six CDs back when I was a teenager, all full of RPMs.

boomboomsubban 3y ago

>Most of these versions can no longer be found anywhere on the Internet. If you did not have the foresight to save them, you no longer have access to them. As far as you are concerned, they are gone forever. I don't particularly care about ancient Linux ISOs, but I bet they're some of the best archived files on the internet. For a start, larger distros do maintain archives. Here's Debian's and Arch's https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://cdimage.debian.org/mirror/cdimage/archive/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ https://archive.archlinux.org/iso/ And beyond that, the hobbyist archivists are on top of that. Many people act on the joke that their torrents are all Linux isos, and the other hoarders are going to save things they use like a Linux iso. Hell, I'd bet every one listed is on the internet archive. And if not, the author could quickly fix the issue.

weinzierl 3y ago
There are plenty of sites with old distros. I would like to point out oldlinux.org, because of the easy to remember domain and a smallish, but nice collection. Not a least it has Slackware 1.1.2, which will always have a special place in my heart.
shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
Yea, for sure. These old linux isos are heavily mirrored, and many also has bittorrent mirrors. Here's another one, funded by Swedish government, run by Stockholm University): https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/ https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/
mathiasgredal 3y ago
Sure, but how useful is that when you can’t install any packages, since the package repositories only host packages for supported versions. When a distro goes EOL, the package repositories typically move to the next supported version and delete all of the old packages.
- dsr_ 3y ago
  Debian has all of the packages in archives. https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive https://www.debian.org/distrib/archive

anthk 3y ago

Slackware mirrors often had full repos and cd sets from 1.0 to the current one. On runing modern software: - guix for GNU libre supporters like me, albeit it's slower and it might not be supported, but it can be installed by hand. - pkgsrc. Yes, you can use pkgsrc under GNU/Linux. Or better, hyperbola GNU will maybe run under a Pentium IV with SSE2 and, with care, under a Pentium II-III with IceWM, Rox and a cli/TUI based setup except for sxiv, dillo and mplayer.

cracrecry 3y ago

There are multiple reasons to use Linux, probably as many as Linux users. The author believes everybody is like him and is not. Over time all software becomes bloated as it is cheaper to buy hardware than pay developers. In the past paying people was worth it because you could do with cheap machines what only very expensive machines could do. Now cheap machines are very powerful. In the Open source Arena it is also way cheaper in things that are not money: People are doing it in their free time and they do not want to pay with their free time nasty bugs as a result of writing low level instead of high level, functional and so on. People must not forget that writing low level code, like in the past, is way more efficient but comes at a huge price: nasty bugs that are psychologically very taxing for a developer. Huge delays and overcosts. As a company we write functional programming/high level code that is from 20 times to 100x more inefficient than what we could get with low level programming. We ship it anyway because: 1. It works and it is good enough. 2. Nobody will notice the difference and pay us for the enormous amount of work that will take to do it low level. There are things in which we do very low level programming, but it gives us an edge over the competition, and someone pays for the work done.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

> AKA the monster that Bill Gates created Yes, the monster what allowed every housewife to use a computer without obtaining a CS degree first. Which paved the way for the residential Internet demand and in turn allowed the smartphone revolution. > I have been saving Linux ISO's for more than fifteen years Lists ISO for the previous Debian and Ubuntu. Sure, Zenlive is old, but why even mention almost modern and the most popular distros? > Unfortunately, they cannot be installed years later because the repositories generally no longer exist! Yes, this is a problem with any OS with network repos as the default source. It's way easier (most of the time) on 'that monster' because the program installers are self contained. But this guy's method of backing up is... let's say unconventional. > Perhaps a reader will point out a better method in the comments below Whatever it could be for the OSes with the repositories? The world wonders.

shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
>> Unfortunately, they cannot be installed years later because the repositories generally no longer exist! > Yes, this is a problem with any OS with network repos as the default source. It's way easier (most of the time) on 'that monster' because the program installers are self contained. Not disagreeing, just adding some notes from memory :) So, linux distros like SUSE used to be several CD:s containing the entire repository, and yet more CD:s with the src packages. You normally would just use the first cd to install a base system, and then connect it to the online package repository. See here for openSUSE 10 (2006): http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/distribution/10.2/iso/cd/ http://ftp5.gwdg.de/pub/opensuse/discontinued/distribution/1... The installation even set up the package manager with the cdimage as source and you would have to edit the package manager config in order to even get updates over the internet.
- anthk 3y ago
  I bought a 3-4 DVD set of Debian Sarge with near everything. Most of the commenters (and the blog poster) have absolutely no clue on how GNU/Linux was shipped before Ubuntu, or even the Debian CD archive, or the Slackware ISO dumps + full repo backups, there are even packages from Alienbob for older releases.

Dwedit 3y ago

"...tried and failed multiple times to install it onto the Precision M20's "hard drive" (actually a micoSD card on an IDE-to-microSD-card adapter). Every time, the installation looked successful. I even checked it with Gparted, which showed that the partition had been created, made bootable, and data had been written to it. Then, when I rebooted, no partition existed!" Some MicroSD cards fail in a "Read Only" mode where they pretend to accept new data, but don't actually write anything.

fao_ 3y ago

> Those who would like more details about the growing dysfunctionality of Linux and why it is the way it is may want to watch this YouTube video. Some context before I give my perspective: I've been using Linux since before the 2010s, I ran Arch Linux for about 7 years solid, and I've used probably about 100 or 200 distributions in total (I'm an ex-distrohopper). For a 2 or 3 year stretch I used Alpine Linux and compiled most things from source. I keep "old" hardware about (I have a trusty X200 in the corner as I'm typing this), but have contact with baby boomers and do technical support from them sometime. From my perspective, Linux is the strongest it's ever been. The joke of "X is the year of Linux on the desktop" is evergreen, but actually seems to be approaching true. I can literally pick a random top-10 distribution, install it for someone, and the likelihood of them encountering major breaking bugs in wifi drivers, sound, graphics cards, etc. is vanishingly low and getting lower by the year -- which is shocking given how regular these things were even as late as 2018. In terms of compatibility and usability Linux is probably the strongest it's ever been. The decades long joke that was Pulseaudio has been replaced with a solid system. Most of the graphics driver weirdness that was the 2010s has been fixed through the efforts of the mesa team with help from Valve's Big Pockets. > Linux developers' responses clearly show that Linux is no longer an operating system for computer hobbyists who want to keep their beloved vintage or near-vintage computers alive. Instead, it has become an operating system that developers see as a way of boosting their careers. I think this is an incredibly specific perspective that is ignorant of... the majority of users. Sure, in the late 2000s Linux was seen (by Windows users mainly) as nothing more than a system that you'd slap on a shitty old computer to keep it working. But from the start Linux was never actually intended to be relegated to that position, and much of the actual developer and userbase was and has been driven by corporate interest in Linux-on-the-Server and, more recently, Valve's Linux-on-the-Handheld. Linux tends to be flexible to be a "what you make of it", but that has ALWAYS involved someone actually putting in the effort and time and energy (and often money) to make it into that. It's not really OP's fault if there are no good modern distributions to stick on something and make it work (Even though, uh, as we shall see, there are. Lol), but it's kind of weird to expect that expense from someone else when OP seems to be completely aware of how much goes into that in the first place. > Given that few Linux developers are willing to provide old versions of their distributions on line any more From my memory some distributions that aren't really a Thing anymore but were used for old computers were Knoppix and Puppy. And, oh look. Knoppix versions from 2017 are still around: http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/ http://torrent.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/ A quick check and... Puppy is still around and going strong?! Also, it seems like Puppy versions from years ago are still around too (this was 1 click to grab the current iso and a short edit of the URL to go back up in the directory tree LOL) - https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/ https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/ And... oh shit, wait- what's that! https://distro.ibiblio.org/ https://distro.ibiblio.org/ seems to have a metric (expletive)-tonne of distributions going back to uhh, looking at the i486 Zenwalk directory... 2006? is 20 years not good enough?? > Now that many of my old PC's are aging out of Linux [CITATION NEEDED] > probably because it uses light-weight desktop environments like IceWm that are rather old and were never standardized to the extent of the more modern environments Just use Slackware or Puppy and install LXDE...? What exactly is the problem here :/

redder23 3y ago

Facts: #1 Linux support for old hardware in general is incredibly good, better then any other modern OS AFAIK. #2 Running a 15 year old Laptop makes zero sense, you can not be that poor. I use gaming rigs as my PCs for everything and I one of mine was 8 years old at some point and I still sold it for 250€ and bought a new one. There are budget laptops that run faster, eat less power bill that any 15 year old device. Of the specifics of your device do not play will with distros its just another good reason on the top of the list why an upgrade is past time. Demanding devs to maintain stuff for 15 year old hardware makes no sense, if something is there and still works and can be "maintained" with little effort while keeping it in place its another story. But again generally speaking I think Linux, the kernel has incredibly good support for an insane amount of obscure and ancient hardware out there.

JohnFen 3y ago
> you can not be that poor. I don't think that the assumption that people run old hardware because they can't afford new is generally valid.

JohnFen 3y ago

Yes, this is one of a few reasons why I've begun the effort to shift away from Linux entirely. Sadly, the Linux ecosystem keeps evolving in a way that makes it less useful and desirable to me.

kkfx 3y ago

Few notes: - supporting old hw with modern software tend to be pointless, let's say you can found anything compiled for the relevant arch, you got a WM and a set of app deployed flawlessly, then? A modern web-app + a modern WebVM improperly named browser for legacy reasons it's simply way too heavy for the iron. Specially for the graphic part, and most of today's activities happen on web-apps demanding modern WebVM. Oh, of course you can write your thesis in LaTeX, but not with Zotero, you can run Emacs, but it will be painfully slow and so on. You can use the machine as a homeserver for stuff who do not demand much BUT that's means consuming much more energy than a modern raspi for similar performances... In the end it's just about showing old hw and something running on it; - in the aforementioned terms all you need is just an old ISO image packaged with as much as software of that time you can, it's relatively doable, but it waste resources just to show an old system, without practical usage, it's normal most distros do not support such scenarios, it's more about some heritage foundations... Now the part I agree: - most modern OSes, not just GNU/Linux are designed for another era, not a modern one, but a very ancient one, I mean in 2024 decades after the first release of NixOS or Guix system having classical installers who take care of partitioning than spreading some archives on a fs tree it's absurd. A archaic design from the '80s; - most modern package managers are born after the '80s, but they lag behind '80s tech. They are just archives of files to be spread in a tree. Having something that better map source and binaries crafting a system in code it's very needed and missed on most current OSes; - most file systems are archaic, we need to go past beyond files and directories and even if in the past some have done so, like to a certain extent BeOS, we still have even users who manage their information in files & folders. The above aspects are not much interested for keep up old iron but to evolve in modern time, actual state of tech is TERRIBLE for the actual state of possible tech we have.

anthk 3y ago
Who cares if they are ancient; they work with ease and they are easy to set up and backup, something the gen-z misses terribily and fails to understand over and over reinventing the wheel.
- kkfx 3y ago
  They are definitively NOT easy to manage: - you can't know their current state, since anything is deployed one command at a time, and then other commands to upgrade and so on, while OSes like NixOS/Guix Systems are just a network of symlinks rebuilt from a config upon any change; - you can't replicate them from scratch, even if you automate, no matter if Ansible/Salt, homegrown scripts, fog or something else, a proper replication demand a gazzilion of things to be manually prepared from a custom ISO or the current official ISO + all you change and you need to keep anything up, again NixOS/Guix System replicate from the config and making a custom ISO as a helper is just few lines of the very same language config; - classic package manager badly accept user modifications, something have done for sources (FreeBSD ports, Gentoo/make.conf and so on) but essentially nothing for binaries, just some rigid and limited automation by Debian with "alternatives" and "configure", again a nightmare to get something custom; - backups? There is NO DAMN REASON to backup an OS, data of course, no matter if homes or /var stuff BUT definitively not an OS, it must be reconstruct and frequently since anything derive more or less quickly and to be reliable you need to been able to replicate with the minimum effort. Just try to compare a NixOS/NixOps managed infra vs a RH/kickstarted or Debian/Preseeded one). Gen-Z probably do not even know what's a file https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-direc... but that's a totally different matter, classic systems including current commercial big ones are archaic crap.

anonymousiam 3y ago

There are plenty of old Linux distributions that run on old hardware. The only reasons to run a modern distro are new features and security fixes.

simonblack 3y ago

Slackware goes back all the way to Slackware-1.01. I'd say that slackware versions 8 to 10 would be about the right vintage for your machines. Yes those versions are old, but the packages worked then and they will work now. I think that what the OP actually wants is a Boeing 747 powered by a rotary aircraft engine from WW1. And that's a completely different barrel of fish.