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Old 02-08-2001, 08:21 AM   #1
DGTL_Magician
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Lightbulb Linux on a 386


Currently, I have linux running on a 386 with 4 Mb RAM, I did it just for the fun, but now I really want to do something with it.
Does anyone have any suggestions?????
And I don't want to do anything web-related.
 
Old 02-08-2001, 08:48 AM   #2
trickykid
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If your on a network, they make great routers, firewall or proxy server. Is that too web related for you?
not much else I could think of with so little power. You could turn it into a MP3 machine and put it in your car, I hope to do that soon.

Well, that's all I have on ideas.....anyone else....!
 
Old 02-08-2001, 09:08 AM   #3
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Yes, an MP3 machine is a good idea! But I can't get my CD-Rom player to work. And the harddisk is too small.

More idea's?
 
Old 02-08-2001, 02:05 PM   #4
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Wink

Um, target practice?
 
Old 02-09-2001, 12:45 AM   #5
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Isn't that a waste for a perfectly good machine?????
 
Old 02-09-2001, 12:50 AM   #6
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Ya, but what are you really going to do with it? It's good for learning, but I guess i don't have any real suggestions...

 
Old 02-09-2001, 01:02 AM   #7
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It was just for fun to get Linux on the machine, with no CD-Rom. Now I just want to do something usefull with it.
 
Old 02-09-2001, 03:06 AM   #8
ugge
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Use it as a minimal workstation connected to a fileserver, linux or windows.
 
Old 02-09-2001, 03:47 AM   #9
DGTL_Magician
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For what?
 
Old 02-13-2001, 07:06 AM   #10
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Lightbulb

You can make a nice configuration to do graphic (hardware) programming on it if you connect it to your normal PC with a serial nulmodem. That's also usefull when you mess up XWindow. Finally you can use it as a console to log the kernel boot messages when messing with the kernel.
 
Old 02-13-2001, 08:41 AM   #11
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Lightbulb

What about getting a few more of them, stack them all together and build a "supercomputer"?

I read somewhere that linux is capable of building one "virtual" machine that consists of several machines.... don't know exactly what its called though....

after that you could have it participate in the distributed.net or seti@home program



[Edited by bako on 02-13-2001 at 09:43 AM]
 
Old 02-13-2001, 10:02 AM   #12
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I believe that is called a 'cluster'. I saw a book on building linux clusters at Barnes & Noble. I always thought I'd be cool. I did read where a guy picked up like 20 old 386 -486 PCs that a school was throwing out. He took everything out of the cases and fashioned a rack to hold all the motherboards and stuff. He claimed that you could use any PC you wanted, you could mix and match a 386 with a P3, or several of each and they all teamed up as one.

Sounds fun.

-Mark
 
Old 02-13-2001, 11:59 AM   #13
curator
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Smile Games!!!

There's only one thing you should use a 386 (or worse) for (if you only have the one, anyway) -

retro games machine!!

you are in an uncommon position to run lots of really great games which were designed to run as fast as the processor could go, and as a result are completely unplayable on fast machines...

unfortunately I cant really think of any at the moment...
 
Old 02-15-2001, 04:39 PM   #14
KevinJ
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http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu

or maybe http://www.parabon.com/cac.jsp
once the linux client is done

check out http://www.parabon.com for others

or http://www.distributed.net
 
Old 02-16-2001, 12:57 AM   #15
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Great idea's!!
A cluster is a nice thing!! I think I'll do that!
 
  


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