Which distro for Perl & MySQL server?

watty

OLD HW, P200 and 64M maybe 128M RAM.

Which distro for ability to run newer packages, a package manager and old HW like 2GByte disk (maybe 1G to 4G), 64M RAM and 200MHz socket 7 or Pentium Pro? I have about 5 machines of this spec.

I used to use RH 6.0 in 1990, and have the CDs etc, but maybe lots of packages won't run on that now,

I tried Ubuntu on 366MHz CPU with 146M RAM and it makes Win XP look svelte and speedy. Perhaps only its GUI and firefox that is performance brain dead.

Any ideas? I might later want after test to migrate on to mini boards with no graphics (Ethernet terminal) and flash mem instead of HDD.

niallb

Hiya Watty,
I think you got your dates wrong - Linus Torvalds wasn't even using linux in 1990. Redhat 6.0 dates from about 1999.

Anyway, don't mean to gripe!

If you like ubuntu, there's a server version which should install fine on those machines.
It doesn't install KDE by default which makes a huge difference.

I'm running debian sarge on a few old laptops of a similar spec with 128M to 192M. They're retired from mobile service, and are managing router and printer/scanner/nfs server functions with built in UPS abilities. I run them on a serial console for convenience, so no vga isn't going to be a problem.


Either will give you top of the range package management with the latest releases of whatever you might need.
Staying in console mode will keep your resources free for what you really need.

Redhat 6.0 is fairly dated, and I know you'll run into problems trying to compile newer software releases for it.

Debian with a 2.4 kernel rather than a 2.6 will give you a smaller system
and probably your best performance.

Good luck with the project, and Happy Easter!

NiallB

watty

Mistake typing .. RH6 about 1998 .. 1999

In 1991 I was using Minix and 1986 Cromix, 1988 SCO UNIX.

I think on the install of Ubuntu you can pick server version, but 64M RAM doesn't work.

It seems impossible to find definitive minimum specs of distros, everyone seems to have the "latest" on a 3GHz with 512M to 2GB RAM...

niallb

Minix... I remember it well. Got it running on an 8086 with 512k despite what
they said about minimum requirements being 640k, so I guess this is similar :-)

Standard ubuntu has a 'server' install option,
but 'ubuntu server' is a different install disk,
and should have lower memory requirements.

Debian should certainly install with 64M.

NiallB
p.s. Try this link

watty

Ta.. Downloading the Debian Netinstall.. This would all be impossible with dialup. Which is what I have had for over 20 years! BB Digiweb Metro since Nov 2005

Thomas_S_Hunterson

slackware is probably worth a lookie, runs very wel on low spec machines

watty

Like any other linux distribution the minimum hardware requirements go back to the 486 era:

* 486 processor
* 16MB RAM (32MB suggested)
* 100-500 megabytes of hard disk space for a minimal and around 2.5-3GB for full install

Of course, if you want to install for workstation use you should have better hardware.

I ran Slackware 10 on a 350MHz PentiumII, 128SDRAM and 16MB worth of video memory. It had all the packages installed and was pretty fast under KDE enviroment which is considered the most resource hungry windows manager.

Hmm... a bit to download 4 CDS???

ntlbell

Have you tried FreeBSD?

Thomas_S_Hunterson

watty wrote:

Hmm... a bit to download 4 CDS???

you only need cds 1 and 2, the other two are source code AFAIK

watty

Well be no harm to have source... I have even been known to do C / C++ / C# on occasion..

"Source" and "install" in the ISO file names ought to have told me!

niallb

Debian will allow you to easily get the source to any package you've installed.
It's as complicated as apt-get source packagename

You can then make whatever changes you need, and recompile and repackage as a custom deb.

The build requirements for any package can be installed
with a single command as well
apt-get build-deps packagename
I really wish I could do that on Suse, as I have a requirement
on a Suse server which needs major local customisation, and it's a regularly
updated package. Any suggestions for automating that in Suse from anyone?

The netinstall CD is all you need to download.

Have fun,
NiallB

watty

Yep. I figured that on Debian.

I would have preferred to play with Suse in late 1990s, but it was Red Hat 6.0 that Dell wanted the course on.

They even learnt more about NT, on my Linux course than they had learnt on their Windows courses! (I explained everything by contrasting with how it worked in NT! Including X Window apps on the LInux box running seamlessly on NT4.0 Exporer and Windows laptop providing a UNIX print queue & Postscript printing on a micky mouse canon portable bubble jet.)

Fun for a derainged sense of fun... I could run my Perl server app on an ancient P90 with 64M RAM running NT4.0 But I have ulterior motive for getting it to work on Linux.

democrates

Damn Small Linux might be worth a spin. Newsforge article might shed light.

Cake Fiend

sean_keevey wrote:

you only need cds 1 and 2, the other two are source code AFAIK

Not even - CD 1 contains the core of the distro, CD 2 is just extra guff.

watty

I'll have a look at the DSL

Downloaded already!