[ale] open source solutions for Win 98 on an old laptop

[Greg Canter]

OpenBSD is fine.  I have put it on a Gateway with only a floppy, a HD, and
no USB and no CDROM.  OpenBSD just works.  I think the CPU was as close to a
486 as I have seen in a laptop.  Maybe a Pentium 90 ??  Whatever.  OpenBSD
also plays nice with whatever way you want to network it.


On 7/16/08 9:17 PM, "Brian" <nym.bnm at gmail.com> wrote:

> Considering that I have have put it on machines with 32Mb and 64MB, I
> would make a stab at putting a rather sparse load of Debian on it.
> Or, for that matter, move on over to OpenBSD (definitely have done
> some 32mb installs here, as well) or FreeBSD making sure to exclude
> the bells and whistles.
> 
> Brian
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Daniel Howard <dhhoward at comcast.net> wrote:
>> OK, I know this is going to lead to some interesting responses, but it's
>> actually a serious question.  I've got a donated Toshiba Satellite Pro
>> 225CDS (Pentium CPU, 80MB RAM, 1 GB HDD) I'm working with again because
>> I have a needy person who would like to sell some of their stuff on
>> eBay.  I can't seem to turn it into a thin client (no built in Ethernet,
>> no CD ROM drive, only USB 1.1 and a floppy drive), and I've tried Puppy
>> Linux and DSL (Damn Small Linux) on it with a variety of issues in both:
>> Puppy can't launch X on the screen (and I've tried every combination of
>> xorg.conf fixes I could find), and DSL is really slow on the Dillo web
>> browser, word processor and spreadsheet (believe it or not, MS Office 97
>> loads pretty fast and runs well on this machine), plus DSL also freezes
>> up after a few hours of being left on.  As a stand alone machine for
>> this person, I'm really tempted to leave it as a Win98 platform with an
>> earlier version of Opera as web browser (say 6.0), and ClamAV and/or
>> Avast antivirus, both of which still run in 98, and just put newer USB
>> drivers on it so new USB memory sticks can be used.  The intended user
>> is likely to use an ad-supported dialup service with their handful of
>> free hours per month until she gets enough money to upgrade Internet
>> access and/or the PC.  But this would be a start for her to get some
>> revenue flowing, and you guys know I hate to toss one that could be put
>> to use.
>> 
>> With 80 MB RAM and only 1 GB HDD, any other suggestions of Linux
>> versions to try on it?  If I do leave it Win98, any other other open
>> source or other recommendations to protect it (e.g., shutting down any
>> specific TCP/IP ports, etc.)  I think if she could go to Google for
>> gmail and eBay to sell stuff, as well as write letters for job
>> interviews, and do spreadsheets for budget minding, it'd be very useful.
>> 
>> Thanks, Daniel
>> 
>> --
>> Daniel Howard
>> President and CEO
>> Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
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>> Ale at ale.org
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>> 
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