[dundee] Perth Newbie

[James Le Cuirot]

Miggy hehe. I chose Gentoo because it's what I normally use but also
because I wanted a challenge. A source-based distro isn't exactly the
ideal choice for such a slow machine *unless* there isn't a binary-based
distro that supports it. There isn't an up-to-date binary-based distro
for the PS2 but there is at least one for the Amiga and that's Debian.
NetBSD also actively supports the Amiga (as well as every other machine
on the planet) but it is source-based. They may have binary packages
available though.

Unfortunately you can't run Linux on a plain old Amiga 1200. Last year,
I got incredibly nostalgic and decided to return to the Amiga scene
after a 10 year hiatus. I only ever had a few 500s and a 500+ so I
grabbed myself a 1200 off eBay. Oooh when that thing arrived, I felt
like a little kid on Christmas Day. (-: I then pimped it out with
several upgrades. To run Linux, you need a CPU with an MMU and an FPU.
I got an accelerator card, which (just!!) fits in the trapdoor slot. On
that accelerator card, I have a 33Mhz 68030 (up from 14.3MHz 68020), an
FPU and 128MB RAM! Yeah no kidding on the last bit. *lol* The board can
take one old PC-style SIMM and I got the biggest one I could find. On
the software side, I also bought AmigaOS 3.9 just so I could feel like
I hadn't been left behind.

There are a LOT more upgrades you can do but the stuff is usually rarer
than hen's teeth and always more expensive than gold dust. I'm not that
rich. Or stupid!

James


On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 08:57:06 +0000
Paul Lancaster <paul_lancaster at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> >   
> Welcome
> I like the A1200 install, as ive just dug my old miggy out, sounds
> like an interesting install for one of the partitions. Mind you Ive
> never tried Gentoo -  just getting to grips with Kubuntoo - total
> newbie. Not sure when the next meeting is.
> 
> Hopefully will see you at hte next meeting.
> 
> Paul