[wplug] comparing distros (was: iso small distros)

[Bill Moran]

David Gerard Matthews Jr. wrote:
> While we're on the subject of comparing different small distros for
> wierd old machines, could anybody recommend the best *BSD variant for a
> 486SX?  I was digging around in my parents' attic this afternoon, and
> found my old 486 (which I thought they had given away years ago) sitting
> there all packed up.  It occurred to me that it might be fun to try some
> random OS's and distros on it, and I thought *BSD might be a good place
> to start, but I know bloody little about the BSD's and almost nothing
> about the differences between them (except that NetBSD runs on
> everything, OpenBSD's security obsessed, blah; blah.)

FreeBSD has probably the easiest install.  I think OpenBSD has a smaller
footprint (both RAM & disk) but they're pretty similar.  I haven't actually
gotten around to trying NetBSD yet, I'll have to make some time ...

> The box in question has 12 MB of RAM (I don't care about X although I
> did run X on the machine a few years ago when I put RH 5 on it), a 1 gig
> HD and a 200 MB HD, and a Creative CD-ROM (does *BSD support
> non-IDE/SCSI CD's?).

Versions prior to 4.X used to.  I don't know about recent versions.

I've run FreeBSD on machines smaller than that one (8m RAM, 500M hdd)
and it's pretty impressive what it's still capable of.

> It doesn't have a NIC, so a network install is
> out unless someone feels like loaning me a supported ISA NIC.

I've picked up old ISA 10m/sec NICs for $9 at used comp stores.  But
you can DL iso images of FreeBSD and burn your own CD if you want.  That
won't help if the CD-ROM isn't supported.  I once installed FreeBSD 3.X
from floppies, and I con't recommend it.  The $9 spent on a used NIC will
more than make up for the time and frustration, trust me!

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technology
http://www.potentialtech.com