Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

baslinux - Re: [BL] Win95/IE vs BL3/Links2 on an old 486 w/ 8MB RAM

baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Baslinux mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
  • To: baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [BL] Win95/IE vs BL3/Links2 on an old 486 w/ 8MB RAM
  • Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:48:54 +0000 (UTC)

On Mon, 20 Nov 2006, Justin Gombos wrote:

I just compared these two OS/GUI Browser combinations for performance
on a 486dx2-66 w/ 8MB ram. Both gave very poor results when
attempting to load www.tomshardware.com.

Win95/IE:

It interrupted several times with javascript error popups, the scroll
bar was disfunctional, loading was extremely slow despite the fact
that images didn't load at all. Text overlapped so severely that the
page was completely unreadable.

BL3/Links2:

Loaded faster than IE, but speed was still unreasonable. Unlike
Win95, the Xvesa desktop was unable to use the max color and
resolution of the hardware. There were no nagging error messages, and
page layout was acceptible. Text was readable, and (some of) the
images loaded correctly; that is, until everything locked up halfway
through loading. It froze to the point that a cold boot was the only
option. (BTW, on another webpage Links2 spontaneously terminated
abnormally, so overall reliability may be poor).

Xvesa does not work properly with 8-bit color. You can try a larger X server such as SVGA. Steven posted a default XF86Config for up to 800x600x256 colors.


Links2 does not handle much javascript. Lynx does less (none).

Arachne graphical browser works in DOS but handles even less HTML. I had it working once very slowly in 2MB RAM. 8MB should be dandy. No javascript. Is there a linux version yet? Lynx for DOS runs in 3MB with a small viewer lxpic.


Try non-graphical links with xli in linux as the viewer (click on an image to view it). Uses less RAM.


Conclusion:

Don't even think about running graphical browser on a 486 with 8MB
RAM. Perhaps Toms Hardware wasn't the best webpage to test, but the
page uses features that are typical of what's out there. If someone
wants to seriously consider resurrecting a machine with 8MB RAM, web
browsing is not a practical application.


Sindi

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




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page