Slackware 486 optimized! Running Slackware 1993 to 2023!
by the3dfxdude from LinuxQuestions.org on (#6D0GV)
If you are looking for a Linux optimized for a 486, you will not have to look further than Slackware 1.00.
http://www.slackware.com/announce/1.0.php
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Ok, well 1.00 is not quite available right now, but you can find a complete copy of v1.01 that was distributed by BBS as one point now on archive.org. It's a *complete* copy including XFree86 1.3 that Slackware came with. Just note that the zip of a10, x8, and x9 have an extra disk stuffed in them when they were downloading & zipping the distribution, but it's not corrupt. Delete the extra files to make sure you are not reinstalling duplicated packages while running through the disk series.
https://archive.org/download/slackware-101
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Yay! 486 tuning!
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So Slackware 1.0 comes with XFree86 1.3 released only a short time before, offering some more servers supporting a wider range of cards. Hey, so I have a 486 with an S3 card, it dates back to about 1994, which is pretty close. It's reassuring that Pat wrangled 486es and S3 cards to provide Slackware for the rest of us.
After trying some Slackware ~3.x in qemu some time ago, I just wasn't feeling it. It did not seem authentic. I mean, after all, the emulated hardware devices were still a bit too new, and things did not feel quite right. If I want to know if the emulation is what's giving me the bad impression, I guess I should just start running Slackware on real hardware that it is meant to run on.
I got the machine set up a week ago Saturday. I decided since I no longer have any kind of proprietary CD drive that Slackware supports, that I'll just go with sticking the install files on another hard drive. Beats using a bunch of floppies. LBA is not supported, but 504MB is plenty of disk space. I'm sure I could get it down to fit on a 40MB drive if I really wanted to, but I want X too.
Since Slackware is so easy to work with, I let my 12 year old boy run the install for me. He read the install instructions provided, took notes on the commands and rawrote the install disk and rebooted (no loadlin I guess?). After another screen of instructions that is typical of Slackware, launched fdisk. I explained the concept of partitioning and how to read the numbers, and went through the menu and figured out what to push. After a reboot, we could run the install. He read the package descriptions and I let him decide what he thought was important. If it broke something, oh well, that's how you learn, right? But it was so easy! After making the final boot disk, and answering the questions at the end, a reboot, and it started just fine! It's about the easiest install I've ever seen, and only took maybe at most, an hour? Alot of it was just doing the reading.
So of course he was naturally interested in running XFree86 first thing as he normally uses the later versions on the other computers in the house. The default Xconfig is not set up correctly, and the others did not help. This did require reading the VideoModes.doc, which is quite long. However, I realized the first issue was the S3 Trio64 is about a year newer than what this XFree86 could support, and really the S3 server was a "beta". So only the basic mono server really worked. Oh well, I thought running S3 would have been quite authentic, but it had to be something like an 805. My boy did enjoy the success of running XFree86, but Mahjong does not fit in 640x480 for whatever reason.
After thinking about it, I remembered I have a Cirrus Logic card. I confirmed that the SVGA server supported the clgd5426, and so that card went in. Then it was a matter of setting the mode lines. I decided to just take the mode lines for my LCD by reading them from a current X server, because that gives the best results for this LCD. However, if anyone wants to do this, I read a message from an original XFree86 dev saying just copy the Xconfig.sample, and then delete the mode lines of the dot clocks your Cirrus card and monitor cannot drive, since this config has the standard vesa modes which should just work. And guess what, that works pretty good and really fast to get running. :) It's really not that bad if you follow these instructions.
As far as performance of this version of Slackware, it's quite fast. Only 2MB to boot and about 8MB to run X. Disk space consumed is 98MB after compiling a kernel. I could see doing some pretty good work on it. But I'd caution that I do think the kernel has a memory leak, and the tools are not Y2K compliant. It seems like it's pretty stocked with network utilities, but probably not something you'd really want to run. But it's sure easy to get up and running. I haven't tried a NIC because I don't have a matching card for this kernel. For sound, I did not try as I'd have to bring in some applications for it, but I do think I could get it to work. Why do some people say that Slackware is hard? After 30 years, it's sticks very well to these patterns, and it has only gotten easier, frankly. I think it stands as a testament to what works.
Now we've had our Slackware system for a week, seeing my boy run through it and enjoy things like xlander (which obviously Slackware still comes with) is quite revealing on what it could have been like. My Dad showed me the same on computers based on DOS, so I had know how on setting up a computer a long time back. 30 years ago my sister approached me asking if I wanted to write an OS, and told me about Linux and this guy was creating his own system. I didn't know what to think then. Had I acted on that to find out more, it would have taken me about 24 hours from a BBS to download it but really even longer than that since many BBSes had download quotas. It wasn't until I had broadband in 2000 I finally started looking into it. I kind of wish I had realized sooner how neat it was, but at least I got to see Slackware what it was like then if I had looked up Linux.
Happy 30th Anniversary Slackware!
http://www.slackware.com/announce/1.0.php
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| From: Patrick J. Volkerding (bf703@cleveland.Freenet.Edu) Subject: ANNOUNCE: Slackware Linux 1.00 Newsgroups: comp.os.linux Date: 1993-07-16 17:21:20 PST The Slackware Linux distribution (v. 1.00) is now available for anonymous FTP. The Slackware Linux distribution (v. 1.00) is now available for anonymous FTP. This is a complete installation system designed for systems with a 3.5" boot floppy. It has been tested extensively with a 386/IDE system. |
https://archive.org/download/slackware-101
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| Kernel source and image at .99pl11 Alpha. [compiled with these options: math emulation support, normal hard drive support, TCP/IP, System V IPC, -m486, minix fs, ext2 fs, msdos fs, nfs, proc support, and PS/2 style mouse support. You may need to recompile if you have some other type of busmouse. The kernel was compiled with libc 4.4.1, g++ 2.4.5] |
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| Series X: Also, all the packages you would get in the SLS X series, plus: XFree-86 version 1.3. Open Look Virtual Window Manager made the default window manager. XS3 server offers support for S3 based video cards. XV 3.00 Image viewer is included. PEX files from the XFree-86 distribution are included. |
After trying some Slackware ~3.x in qemu some time ago, I just wasn't feeling it. It did not seem authentic. I mean, after all, the emulated hardware devices were still a bit too new, and things did not feel quite right. If I want to know if the emulation is what's giving me the bad impression, I guess I should just start running Slackware on real hardware that it is meant to run on.
I got the machine set up a week ago Saturday. I decided since I no longer have any kind of proprietary CD drive that Slackware supports, that I'll just go with sticking the install files on another hard drive. Beats using a bunch of floppies. LBA is not supported, but 504MB is plenty of disk space. I'm sure I could get it down to fit on a 40MB drive if I really wanted to, but I want X too.
Since Slackware is so easy to work with, I let my 12 year old boy run the install for me. He read the install instructions provided, took notes on the commands and rawrote the install disk and rebooted (no loadlin I guess?). After another screen of instructions that is typical of Slackware, launched fdisk. I explained the concept of partitioning and how to read the numbers, and went through the menu and figured out what to push. After a reboot, we could run the install. He read the package descriptions and I let him decide what he thought was important. If it broke something, oh well, that's how you learn, right? But it was so easy! After making the final boot disk, and answering the questions at the end, a reboot, and it started just fine! It's about the easiest install I've ever seen, and only took maybe at most, an hour? Alot of it was just doing the reading.
So of course he was naturally interested in running XFree86 first thing as he normally uses the later versions on the other computers in the house. The default Xconfig is not set up correctly, and the others did not help. This did require reading the VideoModes.doc, which is quite long. However, I realized the first issue was the S3 Trio64 is about a year newer than what this XFree86 could support, and really the S3 server was a "beta". So only the basic mono server really worked. Oh well, I thought running S3 would have been quite authentic, but it had to be something like an 805. My boy did enjoy the success of running XFree86, but Mahjong does not fit in 640x480 for whatever reason.
After thinking about it, I remembered I have a Cirrus Logic card. I confirmed that the SVGA server supported the clgd5426, and so that card went in. Then it was a matter of setting the mode lines. I decided to just take the mode lines for my LCD by reading them from a current X server, because that gives the best results for this LCD. However, if anyone wants to do this, I read a message from an original XFree86 dev saying just copy the Xconfig.sample, and then delete the mode lines of the dot clocks your Cirrus card and monitor cannot drive, since this config has the standard vesa modes which should just work. And guess what, that works pretty good and really fast to get running. :) It's really not that bad if you follow these instructions.
As far as performance of this version of Slackware, it's quite fast. Only 2MB to boot and about 8MB to run X. Disk space consumed is 98MB after compiling a kernel. I could see doing some pretty good work on it. But I'd caution that I do think the kernel has a memory leak, and the tools are not Y2K compliant. It seems like it's pretty stocked with network utilities, but probably not something you'd really want to run. But it's sure easy to get up and running. I haven't tried a NIC because I don't have a matching card for this kernel. For sound, I did not try as I'd have to bring in some applications for it, but I do think I could get it to work. Why do some people say that Slackware is hard? After 30 years, it's sticks very well to these patterns, and it has only gotten easier, frankly. I think it stands as a testament to what works.
Now we've had our Slackware system for a week, seeing my boy run through it and enjoy things like xlander (which obviously Slackware still comes with) is quite revealing on what it could have been like. My Dad showed me the same on computers based on DOS, so I had know how on setting up a computer a long time back. 30 years ago my sister approached me asking if I wanted to write an OS, and told me about Linux and this guy was creating his own system. I didn't know what to think then. Had I acted on that to find out more, it would have taken me about 24 hours from a BBS to download it but really even longer than that since many BBSes had download quotas. It wasn't until I had broadband in 2000 I finally started looking into it. I kind of wish I had realized sooner how neat it was, but at least I got to see Slackware what it was like then if I had looked up Linux.
Happy 30th Anniversary Slackware!