small Linuxes [was Palm Router}

[Brian Kelsay]

Well, from a quick Google, I found that you can use that 8088 as a dumb terminal into a Linux box ( 
http://www.sorgonet.com/8086/8088_linux_dumb_terminal/ ), you can run Minix, You can run ELKS ( 
http://elks.sourceforge.net/ ), or possibly another embedded Linux ( 
http://www.iapplianceweb.com/ht/Linux/ ).  Here are some other small Linux kernels and info 
http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/files/linuxsmall01.html .  And a year or more ago when I asked 
Hal about the 386SX that I have, he pointed me at the Linux on a 4MB laptop HOWTO.  Someday I'm 
going to get something to work on that beast (old Fedex Powership).

As for the uses of a 386, you named quite a few.  Remember that Hal used a 486 laptop up until last 
year sometime to program, I think he had dialup so he could IRC, mail and use Lynx.   There are now 
several text based browsers that have enhanced Lynx or replicated it.  As for X, there is TinyX, 
SmallX, I think there is a PicoX, you can use Google for those.  Small X requires 4MB ram and a 
200MB HDD.  Browse around the http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/ site.  Someone I know might know 
some things about what you could run on a 386 or 486.  He who runs a Debian firewall, file and 
print and I think FTP on one 386 w/ multiple NICs.  I wouldn't put it past him to have some other 
stuff running on it.

Brian Kelsay

>>> "Brian Densmore" <> 03/02/04 10:26AM >>>
Yes, but when are they going to make one for
my old 8088 with 640KB on a 20MB HD? Hmm...?

Seriously though, what could one use a 386 for
these days? A router? A text-based web browser?
A text based text editor? Is there even a light 
enough X Windows implementation to use on it?
It wouldn't make a really good firewall, I wouldn't think.
Unless it was a stateless packet filtering one.
You wouldn't want to try and use open office on it
or KDE. It might be an interesting thing to do
to see how many uses we could come up with one of these old
PCs.

-----Original Message-----
From:	Brian Kelsay 
Subject:	small Linuxes [was Palm Router}

I am always fascinated by the floppy bootable and LiveCD distros.  Call it a hobby, sub-hobby, 
whatever.  Anyway I just found Small Linux http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/  for 386SX w/ 2MB 
ram on up.