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Boggles the mind, but I'm sure you could get Linux working on a 1 MHz comp.... LOL

Maybe I should go fetch my 45MHz comp and start underclocking....

A few years ago I was still using a 386 sx/25mhz with 16mb ram as a file server. It was using linux to share files to windows machines over samba. It would use the full 15gb drive and beable to use it without any problems, although the BIOS would only see drives up to 500mb. I had to manually enter the drive settings.

I'd run the machine headless, and just ssh into it when needed, useful when downloading files overnight as the machine wouldn't use too much power and was very quiet.

I've since moved to a bigger 233mhz (fanless) machine with 256mb ram due to the 386 motherboard only having one ide port and the case not having enough space for the amount of harddisks i wanted to use.

The text console on 1 MHz ... perhaps.

Anyone willing to try X.org and GNOME/KDE on an 8 MHz? Haha.

No problem, GNOME/KDE versions from 1999 and XFree86 v3 ...

Typical tactic.

No, let's compare apples to apples, and oranges to oranges -- nice try though.

Since Windows XP was released in 2001, it would be a pretty fair test. To test the newest KDE/Gnome, you should rather compare it against Vista.

No Sir, latest GNOME/KDE just come close to XP in terms of features. We don't compare OS's based on release dates but based on functionality.

If you want to compare Vista, you should compare it with latest release of OSX.

No he's comparing systems released from roughly within the same time period. These are apples and apples.

:P

--bornagainpenguin (who wonders how you like those apples?)

I go by functionality/level of technology, not release by year. Everyone knows that X.org/KDE/GNOME are behind Microsoft in terms of functionality/tech.

XFree86 3.x is comparable to XP? Apples to oranges.

Everyone knows that X.org/KDE/GNOME are behind Microsoft in terms of functionality/tech.

That's an opinion, not a fact. For example, I believe that current X/KDE/Gnome is ahead of Microsoft in functionality and technology. So your statement ("Everyone knows...") is clearly false.

However, the point is moot, as I believe it is extremely pathetic to turn this very nice hack into a Linux/Windows flamewar. And I don't care who started it - it takes two to tango.

Or even a Windows/Amiga OS flamewar.

Linux is the kernel, so you can do your daily jobs without a window manager or Xorg, can WindowsXP do that?, NO. WindowsXP may run but it's useless. I cannot run the 25 mile marathon but give me a year and I'll do it, but how useless is that!

Edited 2006-01-29 15:25

Response to SlackerJack:

Windows XP has a kernel as well. You install the server edition and you can simply telnet or ssh into it to do your job.

A kernel in itself is not useful without the other utilities. Linux is useful because of bash shell and other GNU utils.

And for your information, the guy was able to launch full explorer, let aside simple command line apps like ssh etc.

Sometime try to increase your knowledge before giving such baseless statements, just because you have a bias for linux.

Edited 2006-01-29 19:15

It's called an "experiment". Look up the definition.

Fantastic! This article isn't about linux though.

Yes, Vista will run on a 8 "Ghz" computer.

What that last guy posted was called "SARCASM", clearly you missed it.

(admitidly with nowhere near as many drivers/network stacks etc)

Case closed.

But dosn't it worry you that modern computers are so powerful, and yet so slow?

Also, why the abuse? And for your information I'm using Modern Amiga crap, thank you very much.

Also, why the abuse?

Because, well, this is Linux is Poo.

Because of the snobby attitude. "Oh well ... AmigaOS could do all of that in the CPU power that Windows XP uses idling!"

Well then, Mr. Snob, how about you step back a little and consider what ELSE Windows XP does, and how much more advanced things are now than in the past?

Modern computers are powerful, but slowness only depends on your perspective. What part are you talking about when you say they're slow?

Slow(er):

When I turn it on and till I get to a usable OS
When I open "My computer"
When I open a folder, any folder. (or Draw, amiga pedants)
When I switch it off.

Did I say that Amiga OS (I specifed, for no good reason) 2.04 could do all (XP?) can do?
In fact, I put in the bit that it didn't anything like as much.

Turn it on == It's called S3 suspend. Modern computers, right? Use it. Instant on, instant off.
Open "My Computer" == What's faster than instant? I fail to see the problem.
Open a folder == See above.
Turn it off == See above.

Even with "Instant off" is still sits there for a few seconds telling me it's shutting down. That's still slower.

Open "My computer" in an instant? I did mention a sub 1000Mhz PC didn't I?

Of course the strange thing is, many users are probably use to these slight but constant little delays. as they wait for the computer to catch up with them.
for example on the 750Mhz 256 Meg PC at work, say renaming a file, I now can press the right mouse button, and move the pointer to where the option that I want to select in the time the Contect menu takes to come up.

Maybe I'm just too fast for this world. (I know about F2, thanks)

No, wait, I've been trolled havn't I?

Comparing the speed difference between the Amiga500 and, say, 400mhz PII, XP should boot in less than 1 second from cold boot to usable desktop =)

Edited 2006-01-30 14:59

S3 Jea right. You only pray to have the same number of ons and offs.

Next time try not to buy Ching-Chong-Wang-brand motherboards made by a guy in a shack somewhere in the poorest district of North Korea.

All of my systems, ranging from a Duron 1.2 to an Athlon 64 do S3 just fine.

The point to remember with Amigas are that they were doing twice as much of the stuff we take for granted today at more than ten to fifteen years before the rest of the world caught up.

They've a reason to be smug IMHO!

--bornagainpenguin

Then, not now.

Think about it realistically ... try to sell someone an Amiga with the argument "They did 2x more 15 years ago!" is pathetic. No one gives a damn, because the computers of today can do 5x more.

"Don't buy that Athlon 64, buy the 386DX, because it was the first with an integrated FPU!" <-- Same argument, same lack of logic.

Mr. Poo, how about you step back a little and consider this: it is not important what a given OS can do. What counts is how much the _user_ can do with a given computer.

If AmigaOS allows a user to do everything he wants to do, then AmigaOS is the perfect OS for him.

(for the record: I've never even touched an Amiga in my life. yet.

You successfully missed the point, by about the same distance the Sun is from the Earth.

When dealing with Hacks, To ask why - is to not understand.

@Kroc
Was it me that missed the point or you?

Windows 98SE would also install on an identical configuration and be more usable @ the same time. You could actually do something with Windows 98SE afterwards.

So, Windows XP installed & booted, but you couldn't do anything practical with it.

If I could take a 1 Litre engine and put it into a big, heavy vehicle to show that it could move it. What would that prove? That the 1L engine could move a big vehicle, though with super slow acceleration, but could do it? Now, if that 1L engine could produce the same acceleration (& speed) as the bigger engine, then that would be something else.

Just because you can do it, why would you? Just so you can show that it can be done? Most people will run Windows XP on P4, P3, P2 & Athlons. So, the article served no practical purpose other than to satisfy general curiousity - which appears to have been important to you.

Maybe you are looking @ installing Windows XP on your Pentium 8Mhz system too :-)
Ok, now I understand.

Sorry, but I still think it's you missing the point.

Sport served no practical purpose
Art serves no practial purpose.
Music serves no practial purpose.
messing about trying to run OS on totally inapropriate HW servers no practical purpose.

They do it because they can climb that mountain, sorry, because THEY find it fun to do.

Wonder if they've got girlfriends?? (Crumbs, says a man on a OS bullitin board)!

I get it AmigaRobbo. They did it for fun & to satisfy the general curiosity.

I still think it didn't provide anything usefull, but you're right, that we all do different things for fun and to satisfy our curiousities. And they did this test because it was fun for them.

But I'll disagree on the rest because they actually do serve a purpose:
Sport - competition, to show who is better @ playing the game, who will emerge victorious; We are competitive @ heart.
Art - Visually appealing - to show off beauty or ugliness, an expression of thought & feelings, to show the world one's interpretation of an event or object.
Music - created for relaxation, enjoyment, an expression of creator's mood to affect the listener's feelings & attitude.

"All art is quite useless." - Oscar Wilde

But I think we're drifting OS here...

dude, typing "at" requires two keystrokes, typing "@" requires holding shift and pressing a key, there is no shortcut in typing @. This is OSNews, not an AOL IM.

There are many possible motivations behind this

- Curiosity.
They want do know if it can be done

- Fame.
The page was posted on OSNews and probably many other sites as well.

- Challenge.
From the article, It seems like they had to try a lot of hardware configurations with a lot of tweaking.

"Was it me that missed the point or you?"

Nope, it was you. See post above.

Edited 2006-01-28 22:41

Just because you can do it, why would you? Just so you can show that it can be done?

Yes. That's exactly why.

I myself found the experiment quite enjoyable to read about. And I really don't see this as a "XP requires less resources than Linux" kinda thing either. I'm both a Windows and Linux user, by the way. It was a hack, a challenge, and if someone had asked me if it could be done, I probably would have said no. So it's quite amazing for me, in a completely useless way.

And that's just fine. Not everything needs to be useful in life, you know...

I'm sure they did it because they found it fun and enjoyable to do.

They seem happy enough!

there's odd things people do for their jollies, well, you're on the internet, I'm sure you can find examples of them.

I think the article is a bit fuzzy on whether it was INSTALLED while the machine was running that slow. For all we know, it was installed on a P4 and the HD was physically connected to the underclocked Intel Overdrive machine for the test and screenshots.

"The installation was made with the help of nLite during the night." - I'm not familiar with that process - alternative setup for XP?

No big hurdle really - these are just some people with old hardware in the closet and have nothing better to do with it. I can relate

Edited 2006-01-28 22:03

I was think about how they got XP on the Hard drive, assuming it's installed on a different MB, wouldn't it throw a barnie (sorry, I mean go wrong) if you attached it to a different Mobo?

There is a certain registry tree you can delete to force it to auto-redetect hardware after a motherboard type swap. Doesn't always work but it hasn't failed me personally yet. Actually, in every instance I've done a mobo/proc swap the systems booted. it complained, and took two or three reboots to install all the drivers (automatically expect network/video obviously)

Haven't had the same luck with Linux. It ate my desktop once. hehe. No disrespect to Linux (i use it daily)

There is a certain registry tree you can delete to force it to auto-redetect hardware after a motherboard type swap. Doesn't always work but it hasn't failed me personally yet. Actually, in every instance I've done a mobo/proc swap the systems booted. it complained, and took two or three reboots to install all the drivers (automatically expect network/video obviously)

Neat trick. I'll research more for it as I needed something like this one of these days. It could prevent me from hosing my WinXP setup when I switched the mobo.

Haven't had the same luck with Linux. It ate my desktop once. hehe. No disrespect to Linux (i use it daily)

It's the exact opposite to me. Linux seems to be more tolerant to hardware changes. Most distros run by default some sort of hardware detection during boot (ala kudzu) that changes system settings accordingly to the respective hardware changes. Mepis survived flawlessly my mobo change. Windows XP didn't.

XP seems to have number of kernels tuned for particular CPU/MOBO combinations on its installation cd. They are selected during installation but, I guess, can't be changed afterwards.

"XP seems to have number of kernels tuned for particular CPU/MOBO combinations on its installation cd. They are selected during installation but, I guess, can't be changed afterwards."

1. The HAL/kernel combo's are specific to 6 different scenarios on 32bit:

Standard PC - (Non ACPI/Non MP capable)
MPS Uniprocessor PC - (Non ACPI/MP capable w/1 CPU core at install time)
MPS Multiprocessor PC - (Non ACPI/MP capable with 2+ CPU's)
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface PC (ACPI/Non MP capable)
ACPI Uniprocessor PC (ACPI/MP capable with 1 CPU core or HT disabled at install time)
ACPI Multiprocessor PC (ACPI/MP capabe with 2+ CPU cores or HT enabled at install time).

2. You can change the HAL/Kernel combo quite easily through the device manager.

Generally that's only matter of swap space available and your time. I'm not sure the default 2.6 ker. would boot on as little as 6M but I used to boot RedHat 6.x on 6M machine.
Given the source availability you could compile all the stuff with 586 instructions stripped and try to run it on 386SX.

that's strange. i installed win 95 on intel 486dx2 66 and it worked quite good. it was installed with ie 4. it booted in 36 SECONDS. you maybe forgot to turn on TURBO switch.

Oh the machine could boot Windows 95 fine. I am talking about Windows 98. With all the junk MS added, it killed off the reasonable w95 functionality for older processors.

that's way, i said that i installed version with IE 4.0 integrated. this is very close to win98 (not sr2).