Vector Linux announced the release of version 3.2. The disto is now fully Slackware compatible and LSB compliant. It is based on the linux kernel 2.4.20 and Glibc-2.2.5. Several new additions to the software mix have been added such as CDRW support to burn cd’s, faster web browsing via Dillo and the latest Opera , autopkg to keep things up to date, checkinstall for easy source installation, and additional security updates. Antialias font support is in both the available window managers. New in version 3.2 are new and enhanced configuration tools to make installation and hardware detection even easier.
Vector Linux 3.2 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Linux is often said to breath life into older hardware. Yet none of top distros run particularly well on something like a P166 with 32 megs of ram. The newer “desktop” distros are even more resource hungry and don’t support older hardware.
There is always a lot of discussion on OSnews about new operating systems, interfaces etc. But older PCs and software that support it doesn’t seem to arouse much interest. Why??
There are so many disadvantaged people in developed and developing countries who would be happy to use these old PCs. And just because it is old technology doesn’t mean the software and OS should be ancient too.
At the community centre where I help out, we were amazed by what Vector did to our old donated PCs, and it looks fantastic too. It would be good to see a bit more about the developments that can be used to help those who would otherwise be excluded. (Surely, old computers will always outnumber the newer ones!)
regards
rob
Thank you for the heads up – it is useful to me, with my 1997 AMD-K6 200 machine, to know that Vector does indeed deliver on its lean and mean promise. I would also be interested to know what a minimal configuration would be to reasonably handle the KDE 3.1 option (comes with the CD).
On your comment that OS’s that run on older PC’s do not arouse much interest on this site: I think if you read between the lines there is plenty of interest in lean, elegantly written, software expressed here. Since news items are usually references to articles written elsewhere or announcements, it is true the subject matter is not often explicitly software that works on older machines.
Which leaves an opening. You seem to have some good real-world experience in making older machines functional. Why not write an article and submit it to the OSNews editor? We know it does not have to be very long, or well written [:)] – just interesting to the site audience.
I know there are lots of options out there. For those with x86 machines: stripped down Linuxes like Vector, DOS + some GUI, optimized Win95 or Win98 lite for not too ancient machines (98lite, now at http://www.litepc.com/ , works great on my PC), and, for the less conventional, BeOS PE and QNX, among others.
Your point about the number of potential users out there for this type of software is well taken. It is just not in the interest of the Dells and Microsofts of this world to devote much attention to them.