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baslinux - Re: [BL] BL3 loop works in 3MB RAM on 386SX20 with copro

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  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] BL3 loop works in 3MB RAM on 386SX20 with copro
  • Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 19:56:43 +0000 (UTC)

The 386 with 3MB RAM works to dial and telnet to my bbs, and to send files via plip to a 486 laptop (with many timeouts). I do NOT recommend it if you have any other possibilities (such as using the 386 for DOS with epppd for DOS and the ftp and telnet programs found in Arachne, and/or kermit for DOS, and a DOS viewer lxpic, which even works online with lynx for DOS, the half-size non-NLS version).

Kermit for linux works but leaves 200K free RAM and took a few minutes to load. I did not bother trying to telnet with it.

zgv works. It took 3 minutes todisplay a 50K jpg, of which 10 sec was actually drawing the image. 7K/sec video speed (our other 386 laptop did 10K/sec). On the 486 with 8MB RAM and better LCD screen it took 20 sec of which 2 sec was to draw the image.

With zgv you can zgv -g image.jpg to get greyscale or hit g while the image is onscreen IF it is 16-bit color. With 256-bit color (greyscale) I did not notice any change by hitting g. I don't think it would be worth trying to run graphical links2 in svgalib on this speed computer if one image takes 20 sec to display.

So a 386 SX20 with copro and 3MB RAM is not suitable for any sort of graphics with linux (it is okay but a bit slow with DOS) even svgalib (which is working fine on the 486 with 8-bit greyscale where X will only do 4-bit greyscale). I am not going to bother testing the 386 with 5MB RAM with zgv or kermit as it has a dead keyboard and so does the 486 which works better, but I don't recall it being quite this slow. It booted linux faster but I had no swap file and that took 1 min to load on this 3MB RAM 386. Why does it take so long to set up the swap file on HD?

The 486 did not need a swap file for zgv or links.

25MHz (DX?) Compaq Contura. You cannot change the hard drive unless you have one of the 60 models on the list but BL3 in 20MB is quite adequate since the larger X programs won't work in 4-bit color (abiword, links2).

The Tempo 386 is fine for learning CLI linux on and if you have patience you can access a bbs with it and do file transfers.

keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - http://sdf.lonestar.org




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