[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?

Sat Oct 2 16:14:35 CEST 2010

On 9/26/10, Giuseppe Ghibò <ghibomgx at gmail.com> wrote:
+>
+> As I said I would see someone with such hardware, taking a CD of latest MDV
+> or cooker and try to install to do something and do a report.
+>
+> That  reminds me also one suggestion. If someone has old hardware that not
+> in use anymore then could be donated to who is willing to test the latest
+> MDV|Mageia on it. It's not ironic (I think this is a brainstorming), or I'm
+> not kidding, but there could be an wiki hardware section for that.
+>
+I'm typing this from a 1997 AMD K6-233MHz system with 128MB running
+Mandriva 2010.1  At the time of installation, it only had 96MB and the
+text mode installer was slow but worked OK.  I did a minimal install
+then added task-x11, xdm and icewm post-install.  Even after booting
+into X, its surprisingly fast.  From pressing enter in the GRUB menu
+to XDM takes 53 seconds.  According to /var/log/prcsys.log, the init
+scripts portion takes 19 seconds.
+
+I did make a few post-installation tweaks:
+
+1. Remove msec.
+2. Disable PulseAudio.
+3. Delete /etc/X11/xinit.d/70net_applet
+   (net_applet is a pig and not needed for static wired connection)
+
+Google Chromium is finally a browser that can handle gmail on
+low-resource systems.  Of course, it won't be playing YouTube
+videos but for basic email and web-surfing, this system is usable.
+
+Here are some interesting outputs:
+
+"free" right after logging into IceWM: (27MB RAM, no swap)
+[guest at jarrio ~]$ free
+             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
+Mem:        122812      83684      39128          0       6728      49652
+-/+ buffers/cache:      27304      95508
+Swap:       524144          0     524144
+
+"free" while running Google Chromium: (78MB RAM, 6MB swap)
+[guest at jarrio ~]$ free
+             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
+Mem:        122812     115992       6820          0        620      35516
+-/+ buffers/cache:      79856      42956
+Swap:       524144       6632     517512
+
+CPU information:
+[guest at jarrio ~]$ cat /proc/cpuinfo
+processor       : 0
+vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
+cpu family      : 5
+model           : 6
+model name      : AMD-K6tm w/ multimedia extensions
+stepping        : 2
+cache size      : 64 KB
+fdiv_bug        : no
+hlt_bug         : no
+f00f_bug        : no
+coma_bug        : no
+fpu             : yes
+fpu_exception   : yes
+cpuid level     : 1
+wp              : yes
+flags           : fpu vme de pse msr cx8 mmx up
+bogomips        : 449.53
+clflush size    : 32
+cache_alignment : 32
+address sizes   : 32 bits physical, 32 bits virtual
+power management:
+
+Kernel information:
+[guest at jarrio ~]$ uname -a
+Linux jarrio.upsnag.priv 2.6.33.7-desktop586-2mnb #1 SMP Mon Sep 20
+18:19:58 UTC 2010 i586 i586 i386 GNU/Linux
+
+Hardware information:
+[guest at jarrio ~]$ lspcidrake
+pata_ali        : ALi Corporation|M5229 IDE [STORAGE_IDE] (rev: 20)
+Card:Trident-based cards: Trident Microsystems|TGUI 9660/938x/968x
+[DISPLAY_VGA] (rev: d3)
+8139too         : D-Link System Inc|RTL8139 Ethernet
+[NETWORK_ETHERNET] (rev: 10)
+snd_ens1371     : Ensoniq|5880B [AudioPCI] [MULTIMEDIA_AUDIO] (rev: 02)
+alim7101_wdt    : ALi Corporation|M1533/M1535/M1543 PCI to ISA Bridge
+[Aladdin IV/V/V+] [BRIDGE_ISA] (rev: b4)
+unknown         : ALi Corporation|M1531 [Aladdin IV] [BRIDGE_HOST] (rev: b3)
+
+The old Trident TGUI graphics card only has 2MB RAM.
+1024x768 at 16bit video works fine for 2D. :o)
+
+On the front-panel of this system, there is the old LED which says
+"233" with the "Turbo" button enabled and "133" with it disabled.
+That could make an interesting photo for proving that Mandriva
+and soon Mageia *can* run on legacy hardware.
+
+Not sure if this was helpful but perhaps its a good data point?
+
+Regards,
+Rick
+