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This year I'm going to get Gentoo running on a 486.
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Project poll is a must :)
No way!
7%
 7%  [ 5 ]
Man, something's wrong with your head.
15%
 15%  [ 11 ]
Hell, why not?
77%
 77%  [ 55 ]
Total Votes : 71

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k.wandowicz
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 7:25 pm    Post subject: This year I'm going to get Gentoo running on a 486. Reply with quote

Yes, I am. That's my New Year's resolution ;] In (unlike) case of success, it would probably be the world record. I expect some problems, but hey -- life's hard, isn't it?

I'm almost done building the machine, just an ISA Ethernet controller is missing. I will be documenting the project on http://gentoo486.blogspot.com/ .
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SiberianSniper
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why not use rocket snail?

Gentoo should be possible, not too terribly difficult... it just might be a bit slow. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that....
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yoshi314
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

building is going to be awfully slow, but the system itself works like a charm -
i tried pre-built gentoo on p2-333mhz with 128mb ram and it was quite ok, except for when building software :]
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Cyker
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 8:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This year?

Sounds about right :mrgreen:

Let us know how it goes! I figure you'll have finished gcc and libc by about June, and then the interesting stuff will start! :mrgreen:


<Nostalgia Land!>
Ahh 486s! Nostalgia! That was the peak of the PC era for me... Heck, I still have a few 486 'boards in storage complete with COAST/TAG SRAMs, ISA SuperIO 'boards and my trusty Trident T8900 and Diamond Viper VLB!
I think one's a REAL :shock: Intel i486DX/33 (Ahh, ceramic chip packages! :D), but the other has one of those 5x86 chips (Pentium performance on a Socket3 'board my rectum!)

If you want some 30-pin SIMMs, I think I still have a load of 4MBs on a 30-pin to 72-pin adaptor and my old Creative Labs AWE-32's still got 16MB worth of them installed on it... :P (I did find ironic how they came full circle with the on-board RAM; Removing it for the Lives and Audigys and putting it back for the X-Fi's ;P)

I think I have a 5.25" disk drive lying around somewhere too! (Only 360kb 'tho :( )

The great (great?) grandfather of this server was that DX/33, with a 260MB (Boot) and 1GB (No BIOS support!) HD and 32MB RAM! (8 SIMM slots!!!) :shock: :shock: :shock:

Running RedHat 5.2 :P

I remember being annoyed because it didn't support the 4MB LIM EMS card I had looted from a skip (Because it looked so awesome! It's over a foot long and covered with chips!). Come to think of it, almost every ISA and VLB card in that system was almost/over a foot long! Not like the tiny PCI/e cards we have these days! :P

...

I'm not old dagnabbit!

(Quick! Someone talk about how you raced washing-machine-sized hard disks across the floor so I don't sound so old! :P)
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jonnevers
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:07 pm    Post subject: Re: This year I'm going to get Gentoo running on a 486. Reply with quote

k.wandowicz wrote:
Yes, I am. That's my New Year's resolution ;] In (unlike) case of success, it would probably be the world record. I expect some problems, but hey -- life's hard, isn't it?

I'm almost done building the machine, just an ISA Ethernet controller is missing. I will be documenting the project on http://gentoo486.blogspot.com/ .

interesting. I've installed gentoo on a 200mhz 586 but yeah a 25mhz 486 should be an adventure.

k.wandowicz wrote:
I equipped the computer with a 341.3MB Seagate ST3391A hard drive.

this may be one big issue, 340M is just not going to be enough space.

how will you do a non-cd install?
[edit]
found these: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=8690 and http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_without_a_livecd#Introduction and http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Install_Gentoo_From_Floppy_Without_A_CD-ROM_Drive
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eccerr0r
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 11:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I heard some of the newer libcs required features not available on older processors, which version of libc are you going to use?
Maybe uclibc would work... hmm.

I might try to bootstrap one using a faster machine... heh. The bastardized RH4 install I still have on my 486DX25 laptop (0KB L2) just isn't cutting it anymore. However I do have a 512MB CF gentoo-built install that doesn't include portage or x11 and it has quite a bit of room to spare. Putting portage on will kill it most likely...

Maybe my 386DX40 motherboard could live a second life (it's the m/b of the machine I first-ever used linux on, SLS 1.03 over a decade ago) if it still works after its battery blew up and spilled its guts.

And yes I voted "are you insane." :)
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 1:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SiberianSniper wrote:

Gentoo should be possible, not too terribly difficult... it just might be a bit slow. But I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that....


Go for it and have a drink when this old coucou will compile GCC or KDE :)
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Sprotte
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Something IS wrong with your head.

Will that hard disk even hold the contents of a stage 3 tarball?

You could do a stage 1 (HAHAHA) and hand-pick your ebuilds for a small overlay, because there is no space for the portage tree...

Nice hobby you got yourself there pal. *evil laugh*
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SiberianSniper
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Related thread... and you may get through all the options before it's done installing :)
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guruvan
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 11:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

my first slackware box was a 386....why not!

but then.....why???? (router, answering machine, someone to turn the light off....)

do yerself a favor. compile on something else. you might use up the last legs of the box just running the compiles.

there's real probs trying to go all the way back down to a 386 now, but a real 486DX with an fpu should be fine....(not one of those stoopid 486SX chips...)

umm....if you go have a drink while you compile gcc on it, PLEASE bring a designated driver. It will probably take 48hours. ESPECIALLY if you try to run the compile using local disk space.

I've gotten old pentiums and mips machines to do amazing things. Network disk make a HUGE difference in speeds. Even a 10mbit card is faster than some of those old drives/ide cards. (my SGI Indy wants to play mp3audio real choppy from its local disk, but runs perfectly with the audio files mounted via NFS)

the good news: you don't need you head examined. you're nuts. save the shrink money.
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d2_racing
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 1:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

guruvan wrote:

umm....if you go have a drink while you compile gcc on it, PLEASE bring a designated driver. It will probably take 48hours. ESPECIALLY if you try to run the compile using local disk space.


Yeah maybe a week :)
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Simba7
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm compiling Gentoo for a 486SX2-50 (oc'd to 66) on a Celery 2.0GHz. The only problem I have is gcc giving me problems (post #670988), but my fix was to compile 4.2.2, then 4.2.3. It worked fine on the Pentium/Pentium-MMX, but isn't with the i486.

So.. I'm trying previous versions until I find one that actually works.. A little annoying, but the little Celery compiles rather quickly. Once I can find a version that compiles, I'll jump to 4.2.3 and see what happens.

..oh.. My 486SX2-66 has 48MB of RAM and 2x 2.1GB IDE HDDs (Dell Dimension 486).
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guruvan
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 3:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I'm compiling Gentoo for a 486SX2-50


don't remember where I read it (this week even...) but there was some stuff that suggested that a lot of stuff (glibc specifically) that won't work in current versions without a floating point unit. That's the main diff between the 486DX and 486SX.
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Simba7
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

guruvan wrote:
don't remember where I read it (this week even...) but there was some stuff that suggested that a lot of stuff (glibc specifically) that won't work in current versions without a floating point unit. That's the main diff between the 486DX and 486SX.

Doesn't the kernel support math emulation? Anyway, I found a real Intel 486DX2-66 processor, so I might switch. I also found a Pentium Overdrive 83MHz, but not sure if I should use it or the 486 since there's a severe bottleneck if I do, especially with 0K of cache.
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lightvhawk0
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 9:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Lol, where is poly-p he has a project for that here
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steveL
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You could use a binhost eg: http://tinderbox.dev.gentoo.org/uclibc/i386/
Or indeed make your own at home by cross-compiling in a chroot on a desktop machine, and making the binaries available over the LAN.
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Sprotte
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why compile the system? Can't he use a stage3 tarball? He'll have to compile a kernel though, because of the space requirements (hmm, it could be kept on a boot floppy.)

What is the criteria for "running" anyway? A working shell?

KDE? 8O
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guruvan
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 4:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

knows its own name maybe?

truthfully this shouldn't be that hard. (you might need some older versions - dependency agreements might be a challenge)
I've certainly run slackware on a box like this. (haha....when it was new)

(I'd still use old stuff like this for things like interactive ssh gateway, dhcp server, little LAN dns server)
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nbensa
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have done it (486DX2 66MHz 8MB RAM, running as firewall.) But believe me, you won't like it :)
Instead of build Gentoo on the target machine, setup a chroot in a more powerful box and then copy the system. Same for updates.

Regards,
Norberto
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Etal
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was hoping to find out how long it would take you to compile OpenOffice, but I guess that's impossible. OpenOffice needs 4-6 GB free diskspace and 256 MB RAM :(
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guruvan
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 22, 2008 6:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you'd be hard pressed to run it, too


what I usually have done with underpowered machines I've pressed into service is use another host as an app server and export the display to the x server on the antique. (Last I did this with was on a P-133, with the app server across the internet in a distant land) works way better than trying to run something like openoffice, firefox, seamonkey locally on the antique.

you could get X up and running on this, but then you're going to be about out of machine. You'll get some xterms, and not much more.
(I see firefox eat 10-20% of a 3.2GHz core a lot)
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Simba7
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 2:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, I found out gcc-4.2.x does NOT like i486. I've tried to go from 4.1.2 to 4.2.0 (and above) and it fails in the exact same spot:
Code:
gcc -c   -O2 -march=i486 -pipe -DIN_GCC   -W -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -pedantic -Wno-long-long -Wno-variadic-macros -Wno-overlength-strings -Wold-style-definition -Wmissing-format-attribute    -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/. -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../include -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../libcpp/include  -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../libdecnumber -I../libdecnumber    cc1-checksum.c -o cc1-checksum.o
cc1: error: unrecognized command line option "-Wno-overlength-strings"
make[2]: *** [cc1-checksum.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/build/gcc'
make[1]: *** [install-gcc] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/build'
make: *** [install] Error 2

..but gcc-4.1.2 compiles fine, and everything else seems to compile fine also. BTW: I'm using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" in my make.conf file.
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guruvan
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

you might have to have glibc compiled for i486-pc-linux-gnu loaded up before you run the compile.
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Simba7 wrote:
Well, I found out gcc-4.2.x does NOT like i486. I've tried to go from 4.1.2 to 4.2.0 (and above) and it fails in the exact same spot:
Code:
gcc -c   -O2 -march=i486 -pipe -DIN_GCC   -W -Wall -Wwrite-strings -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -pedantic -Wno-long-long -Wno-variadic-macros -Wno-overlength-strings -Wold-style-definition -Wmissing-format-attribute    -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -I. -I. -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/. -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../include -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../libcpp/include  -I/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/gcc-4.2.0/gcc/../libdecnumber -I../libdecnumber    cc1-checksum.c -o cc1-checksum.o
cc1: error: unrecognized command line option "-Wno-overlength-strings"
make[2]: *** [cc1-checksum.o] Error 1
make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/build/gcc'
make[1]: *** [install-gcc] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/sys-devel/gcc-4.2.0/work/build'
make: *** [install] Error 2

..but gcc-4.1.2 compiles fine, and everything else seems to compile fine also. BTW: I'm using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" in my make.conf file.


odd. that's not something that would be i486 specific.
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Simba7
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 23, 2008 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well, this isn't the first time.. It's happened to me 2 times now.. https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-670988.html

This happened with an i586 and i686 (Celeron 633) setup. The fix was to compile 4.2.2 first. I'll try to compile 4.2.2 (or 4.2.3) after this build is complete.

EDIT: Hmm.. It worked.. It compiled 4.2.3 just fine after the entire setup was built.. Wierd..
I'll try an emerge gcc after ./bootstrap.sh and see what happens.

EDIT #2: Yep.. After I did a ./bootstrap.sh with the modified profile (used =gcc-4.1.2 in 2007.0/packages) and switched back to the normal profile afterwards and compiled 4.2.3, it worked. Just make sure you "gcc-config i486-pc-linux-gnu-4.2.3" and "source /etc/profile" afterwards. Then, to save space, you might want to unmerge 4.1.2.

This is basically the same thing I did with my i586 boxes, but had to use an earlier version (=gcc-4.1.2 instead of =gcc-4.2.2).

Remember, I always do Stage1 installs. If you're using a Stage2 or 3, you're on your own. I figured a Stage1 is appropriate for a i486, since we're trying to squeeze as much out of this processor as we can.
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