AMD & linux

[i586coder]

Hi guy's ,

I want to know what is the best linux distro.
contain WINe & work nice on this machine with:


cpu: AMD 300MHz
ram: 64 MB
HDD: 2 gigs
etc: cdrom,floppy,usb,com,lpt


ThAnX

[01000101]

I'm not sure about the WINE bit, but for my 100mhz 16M RAM laptop, I use either puppy linux or DSL. Debian boots, but is WAY to slow for any practical use.

[Brynet-Inc]

Really, can you cut it out with the colours? there are dark-styled themes here..

[JackScott]

If you can stomach the installation process, as well as wait for all the packages to compile, then Gentoo is definitely the answer. You can choose basically everything that's installed, and *theoretically* you get better performance for the custom optimisations.

If not, my default has always been Debian.

[lollynoob]

windows 98 will make that machine far more useful than linux ever will

you can play doom 2 and stuff

[01000101]

windows 98 will make that machine far more useful than linux ever will

you can play doom 2 and stuff

While I don't agree with 'more useful', I would agree with better performance and lower system requirements. I do agree with the gaming bit though. Let's do a quick comparison of minimum system requirements:

• A personal computer with a 486DX 66 megahertz (MHz) or faster processor (Pentium central processing unit recommended).
• 16 megabytes (MB) of memory (24 MB recommended).
• A typical upgrade from Windows 95 requires approximately 195 MB of free hard disk space, but the hard disk space may range from between 120 MB and 295 MB, depending on your computer configuration and the options that you choose to install.
• A full install of Windows 98 on a FAT16 drive requires 225 MB of free hard disk space, but may range from between 165 MB and 355 MB, depending on your computer configuration and that options that you choose to install.
• A full install of Windows 98 on a FAT32 drive requires 175 MB of free hard disk space, but may range from between 140 MB and 255 MB, depending on your computer configuration and the options that you choose to install.

• 133 MHz or more Pentium microprocessor (or equivalent). Windows 2000 Professional supports up to two processors on a single computer.
• 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM recommended minimum. 32 MB of RAM is the minimum supported. 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM is the maximum.
• A 2 GB hard disk that has 650 MB of free space. If you are installing over a network, more free hard disk space is required.

Minimal CD
CPU: i486 or later
Memory: 64 MB
Diskspace: 1.5 GB (excluding swap space)
Swap space: At least 256 MB

even though asked for the best Linux distro for your hardware, I think you will find higher performance from the older MS operating systems. My old laptop previously talked about used to have win98 on it and it was extremely responsive and played Zeus and Poseidon (game) beautifully, once I switched to variously Linux-based OS's on it, its responsiveness slowed dramatically, but I deal with it as I use some Linux-specific items for testing.

The older MS OS's have very low system requirements, which means your 64megs will be plenty for 98/2000 and will just meet the minimal-cd install requirements for a Gentoo install. Also, Ubuntu and such won't even boot with that much memory IIRC, and same goes for most other 'modern' Linux distros (Fedora, Slackware). You could grab an extremely outdated version of them I suppose, but that does not seem like a great idea.

[Brynet-Inc]

windows 98 will make that machine far more useful than linux ever will

you can play doom 2 and stuff

You can play "Doom 2" on Linux, BSD.. OS X... practically any Unix-like OS that supports SDL/OpenGL.

The usefulness of Windows is highly debatable.

[inflater]

SDL/OpenGL.

You've got to be kidding me. That machine as tayseer listed I highly doubt that it has even support for 3D acceleration, or it is some ATI Rage 128 equivalent... would be slow as hell.

Also actually emulating MS-DOS (dosbox for games I presume?) or running wine on top of modern day Linux with that machine can be even SLOWER. Wake up, it's not Intel quad core, but a 300MHz rig and every today's distro wants at least 1.8GHz CPU with 256 MB RAM as a minimum for GUI.

The usefulness of Windows is highly debatable.

What's so "not useful" on it? Win98 is a old but normal OS, supports old DOS games and you can run 50% of today's Win32 programs on it.

I recommend some Win9x for the machine, or a really old version of linux (which I dont recommend though... bugs and stuff... poorer graphics quality than win9x could achieve, if you want a bit eye candy in it)

[Brynet-Inc]

You've got to be kidding me. That machine as tayseer listed I highly doubt that it has even support for 3D acceleration, or it is some ATI Rage 128 equivalent... would be slow as hell.

What? r128 has a DRI/DRM module for acceleration, as for the OP's particular system... there's good chance he has a Mach64 based card, those were quite common.. DRI is also supported.

SDL doesn't need 3D acceleration.

Also actually emulating MS-DOS (dosbox for games I presume?) or running wine on top of modern day Linux with that machine can be even SLOWER.

Who said Linux?
Who said anything about emulation?
There are native ports of that particular game.. it appears to be open source.

Wake up, it's not Intel quad core, but a 300MHz rig and every today's distro wants at least 1.8GHz CPU with 256 MB RAM as a minimum for GUI.

Again, another Linuxism.. X itself does not need a very impressive setup, Desktop Environments are the problem... it's more then possible to make a decent Unix workstation out of an older system.

[inflater]

Who said Linux?

...

You can play "Doom 2" on Linux,

Who said anything about emulation?

...

contain WINe & work nice on this machine with:

Okay, "Wine is not a emulator" I know its meaning, but it slows down your PC 50 percent as opposed when using a pure Windows environment, so its slow like a emulation mechanism. And for me, the *nix win api collection "Wine" means WINdows Emulator, think whatever you want. If Windows would be Bindows, it would be Bine?... "Bine is not a emulator?" What productive name.

Okay, "emulation" was here never mentioned, I gotta admit.

...There are native ports of that particular game

So... DOOM 2's engine is just *written* on the screen with no acceleration (SDL) under X.org... thats gotta stutter.., or it runs under OpenGL?... never seen OpenGl can do 2D... (well actually doom 2 IS a 2d game isnt it? its not full 3D.. something like "2.5D", but some OpenGL ports make it 3D like you can aim with mouse etc, but it has almost no effect when e.g. aiming on the head, so its still 2.5D)

Summa summarum: If you want to play a dos game on a slow computer, do not install modern operating systems and install older. If you want to play a dos game on a high-end computer and still want to use all functions from a high-end OS, install a emulation for DOS like dosbox. End of debate.

[froggey]

...There are native ports of that particular game

So... DOOM 2's engine is just *written* on the screen with no acceleration (SDL) under X.org... thats gotta stutter.., or it runs under OpenGL?... never seen OpenGl can do 2D... (well actually doom 2 IS a 2d game isnt it? its not full 3D.. something like "2.5D", but some OpenGL ports make it 3D like you can aim with mouse etc, but it has almost no effect when e.g. aiming on the head, so its still 2.5D)

It actually runs great, I've wasted lots of time playing it
As for it being 2D or 3D... The maps are 3D and the game is *trying* to be 3D, but the engine fails to be totally 3D leading to a bunch of strange problems, no looking up or down and monsters ignore height when attacking you, but given the game was targeted at 386es and 486es, it's not entirely surprising.

Summa summarum: If you want to play a dos game on a slow computer, do not install modern operating systems and install older. If you want to play a dos game on a high-end computer and still want to use all functions from a high-end OS, install a emulation for DOS like dosbox. End of debate.

So you're saying that running Doom 2 under an emulator (which probably uses SDL as the display) is going to be faster than running a native port of Doom 2? Though I agree, if you want to run an old game on old hardware for that authentic experience (or possibly required bug-for-bug compatibility), run an old OS.

I think there are 2 major source ports of Doom:
PrBoom. A native port with bug fixes, stays quite true to the original. Can run using either an OpenGL renderer or the old software renderer: http://prboom.sourceforge.net/
Doomsday. A modernisation of the game. It uses fancy 3D acceleration (OGL and DX) and makes the game look fairly pretty: http://www.doomsdayhq.com/

Bonus! PsDoom. Doom for sysadmins! http://psdoom.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html

[lollynoob]

lol way to have aspergers

my post wasnt about running doom 2 it was about the fact that linux is terrible and should not be used

[Troy Martin]

lol way to have aspergers

Whoa. Just. Whoa. Did you just poke fun at people with autistic disorders?

Not cool.

[inflater]

Wait. Who are you calling autistic?

[Troy Martin]

I think lollynublet was directing that comment at froggey, I was just commenting on his use of Asperger's syndrome as an insult.