gentoo on pentium 1?

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queen · Post by **queen** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:00 pm

Someone wants to give away a pc with pentium 1. I don't know the other specs. Is there any chance to install gentoo on such a pc? Someone succeeded?

phajdan.jr · Post by **phajdan.jr** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:03 pm

I can't think a reason why it should not work. Generic tarball and appropriate CFLAGS should do the trick.

i92guboj · Post by **i92guboj** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:05 pm

queen wrote:Someone wants to give away a pc with pentium 1. I don't know the other specs. Is there any chance to install gentoo on such a pc? Someone succeeded?

You can, but you might need to use an stage1 tarball, since I think that they stage3 ones comes compiled for i686, which is pentium pro/pentium II and above. You need also a livecd that is compiled for i585 or below.

It is possible then to get Gentoo installed, though I am not sure you want to spend a couple of weeks compiling stuff. A small binary distro might be more suitable for that box unless you are planning to use console only programs.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:55 pm

You could also do a chroot build on another, faster machine; but yes you'll likely have to start with a stage1 and make sure that the machine is configured to build i586 binaries. You should do a "physical build" of the disk once in a while during the chroot build to test - to make sure that it works with the machine. Basically treating it like an "embedded" build.

That being said, I had quite a few issues trying to target for i486 a while ago. Seems some things aren't flagging the compiler to force build i486 binaries... maybe I forgot something, maybe not, but expect a lot of pain...

timeBandit · Post by **timeBandit** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:47 pm

eccerr0r wrote:That being said, I had quite a few issues trying to target for i486 a while ago. Seems some things aren't flagging the compiler to force build i486 binaries... maybe I forgot something, maybe not, but expect a lot of pain...

i486 is quite the different beast from i586 (Pentium) but I couldn't say whether that alone caused so much pain, not having tried a 486 myself. As for the old Pentiums though, they're really not much trouble provided you host the builds on a fast machine.

Machines of that vintage often have next to no disk capacity by modern standards, which is a problem for Gentoo. On drives smaller than 2-4GB you won't have room for a Portage snapshot plus the basic system, so consider adding/upgrading drives before you start, or plan to remote-mount the Portage tree from another machine. (In truth, you don't really need a Portage tree anyway because believe me, you want to host the builds on another machine.)

There are a number of threads and HOWTOs in the forums that cover useful tricks for installing and maintaining Gentoo on vintage hardware like this, quite a few of us have done it. You'll have fun.

queen · Post by **queen** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:03 pm

timeBandit wrote:
eccerr0r wrote:That being said, I had quite a few issues trying to target for i486 a while ago. Seems some things aren't flagging the compiler to force build i486 binaries... maybe I forgot something, maybe not, but expect a lot of pain...
i486 is quite the different beast from i586 (Pentium) but I couldn't say whether that alone caused so much pain, not having tried a 486 myself. As for the old Pentiums though, they're really not much trouble provided you host the builds on a fast machine.

Machines of that vintage often have next to no disk capacity by modern standards, which is a problem for Gentoo. On drives smaller than 2-4GB you won't have room for a Portage snapshot plus the basic system, so consider adding/upgrading drives before you start, or plan to remote-mount the Portage tree from another machine. (In truth, you don't really need a Portage tree anyway because believe me, you want to host the builds on another machine.)

There are a number of threads and HOWTOs in the forums that cover useful tricks for installing and maintaining Gentoo on vintage hardware like this, quite a few of us have done it. You'll have fun.

Thanks for the tips. I thought of cross compiling. I have a fast machine. Have to check the size of the HD. And most probably it will be console based.

timeBandit · Post by **timeBandit** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:21 pm

queen wrote:Thanks for the tips. I thought of cross compiling. I have a fast machine. Have to check the size of the HD. And most probably it will be console based.

Believe it or not, X Windows isn't out of the question if you have a need (or just for kicks). The challenge is finding X11 apps lean enough to get work done between mealtimes. (F'rinstance, Firefox on a 48MB P166--installed because I just had to know

--takes a minute or so to start up.) OTOH, an Xfce4 desktop on the same hardware is actually quite usable, if a bit sluggish.

eccerr0r · Post by **eccerr0r** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:31 pm

That begs to ask the question...

What is a Gentoo box?

Can I count my 512MB CF card (i686 build) that I built with emerge, it has a full /var/db/pkg like any other gentoo box, can be emerge-upgraded, but does not have a portage tree or even portage/emerge installed? In fact, I don't have python installed on the card.

The CF card I maintain by unplugging it, connecting it to a full gentoo box, and using emerge on the host box. It uses busybox for most of its utilities and regular libc. And it doesn't even have login (i.e., it's boot and root)

(Yeah, it was intended as a test platform, so I could power up/down machines without risk of damage to hard drives. Also it boots without needing to write to CF, so I don't have to worry about it wearing out there.)

Not saying that you have to build your box this way, but it's an option to minimize disk space, though I'm not certain you can still call it Gentoo anymore.

NaiL · Post by **NaiL** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:01 pm

I got some years ago a Gentoo on i586.

It was my router in these days and it works very well till the HD dead

My recommendation is to install minimal Packages, without X support, etc...

timeBandit · Post by **timeBandit** » Mon Aug 06, 2007 9:08 pm

eccerr0r wrote:What is a Gentoo box?

Can I count my 512MB CF card (i686 build) that I built with emerge ... [that]I maintain by unplugging it, connecting it to a full gentoo box, and using emerge on the host box.

Not saying that you have to build your box this way, but it's an option to minimize disk space, though I'm not certain you can still call it Gentoo anymore.

Absolutely that's still a Gentoo... er, box...card...thingy.

Gentoo is a meta-distribution: a distro for building custom distros. You've basically built a Gentoo-based "LiveCF" distro, and from the sound of it a rather nifty one to boot (pun intended

).

To my mind, it's a Gentoo system if it (1) was created using Gentoo installation media/tarballs and (2) has a package database (/var/db/pkg) Portage can use to maintain the system. (Without (1) I'd call it "Gentoo-based," e.g., Sabayon.)

ShinyThings · Post by **ShinyThings** » Tue Aug 07, 2007 5:21 pm

queen wrote:Someone wants to give away a pc with pentium 1. I don't know the other specs. Is there any chance to install gentoo on such a pc? Someone succeeded?

Definitely. I have a Pentium-mmx 233MHz running gentoo right now. And you can do a stage 3 with the x86 stage, or i586 if they have one of those.

ksp7498 · Post by **ksp7498** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:22 am

Last year one of my friends and I had a 233mhz pentium 1 with 64mb of ram running gentoo just fine. it made a damn good router/ftp server/apache test platform.

poly_poly-man · Post by **poly_poly-man** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:53 am

It's probably not a good idea to install gentoo. I mean, It will run and everything, but not well. It'll take some major time to compile anyway. I suggest one of two things.

1. Get slackware. It runs well on old systems, like, for example, my 486sx.

2. Get an old version of something. I ran Redhat 3.0.3 on a Pentium 1 (back when it was new

) once. It ran, even played games in X really well.

My two cents,
poly-p man

Telexen · Post by **Telexen** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 2:00 am

I've installed Gentoo on a dual Pentium 1 MMX (200mhx x 2) before ... EXTREMELY slow.

Better option: FreeBSD

phajdan.jr · Post by **phajdan.jr** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 8:24 am

There are a lot of voices discouraging to use Gentoo here, but I would say (in fact, repeat after some smart folks here): use a fast machine to cross-compile packages for the old box, and it'll be fine. That's the beauty of Gentoo.

soka · Post by **soka** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 11:19 am

I have a Pentium 233 running Gentoo just fine. I'm using it as a home router, proxy server, web server, mail server and other things without problems. I installed it with a x86 stage 3 tarball and used other machines in the lan for cross compiling.

TeMpEsT_BR · Post by **TeMpEsT_BR** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:40 pm

I have a working gentoo on a Pentium 166 MMX. 64MB RAM.

I've instaled using the minimal CD and compiled the system from there... It took a loooooong time do finish, but it workd.

goatcheese · Post by **goatcheese** » Sun Sep 02, 2007 11:33 pm

I just finished the initial compile on a 90MHz Pentium laptop w/ 40Megs of ram. No record for slowest machine ever to run Gentoo but a sufficient challenge considering I had to bootstrap off of a Debian install due to the cdrom not booting. I view this machine as a hobby in a similar manner to people who grow banzai trees.

gentoo on pentium 1?

gentoo on pentium 1?

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