> Btw. forget it. I saw a pentium/100 with 8MB RAM, and it was unusable slow. > apt-get-installing a 20kb-package took 5 Minutes(!). After upgrading to 24MB > RAM (didn't check 16MB), it was a cool server, even able to run small > php3-scripts in a fast manner.
As always it only depends on what you're going to want your computer to handle. I have had an 8MB-386 Laptop to work as a portable protocoll-analyser, scope, etc. - no X, just SVGALib and console. To compile it's own kernel would take 1,5 hours, lots of swapping, etc. Does it have to do this - any other machine on the network did it faster and so they did it for him - hey, that's linux, where we all work together ;-) But beware, i had no luck with any debian BINARY packages after the bo release (very ancient) to run on a 386, the kernel hung right after unpacking itself. I will try a debian install on _4_ (four) MB 386-25 in a few days. Still looking around for the details of cross-compiling (to 386 and m68k), as i think this is the only possible way to get things going. The 386 is needed as a single client web-server & browser for a christmas party in mannheim, roadcase on December 25th, 8pm. Currently it is running an old SuSe-Kernel, decoding radio-wheather faxes all day long. The 32MHz ATARI-TT (greetings & respect, Kerstin!) will be my Desktop-PC. So have fun & do your thing, but remember, you will have to compile that stuff yourself! greetings, martin
