[Gllug] free (very very old) kit

[Jon Masters]

On 21 Aug 2001 17:29:23 +0100, William Palfreman wrote:

> Take my advice and use Pentiums (75s 100s).

I've been using 486s for years without any problem although I do plan to
use a pentium grade machine for my ADSL at home (USB required and all
that -might go for an old PII since I can get one pretty cheapish).

> These will have real pci slots (so you can use nics that actaully
work!)

3c509s don't work? ...or did you mean to say something else?

> and come with 16Mb ram

but my 486s have 16MB of RAM (well, a couple have 16, one has 12 and
another has 8).

> Plus P75s generally have two IDE controllers to the 486s typical one

At home I have two 486s running my (currently dialup) connectivity, they
are linked with three newtwork cards and a serial cable and watch each
other for failure. If one fails, the other takes over, it's pretty solid
to me.

> you can definely attach a CDROM.

Why would I want that? I've got CDROM drives and DVDROM drives coming
out of my ears...and more to the point, I have both samba and nfs
working just fine for when installations are required (last few were
done as net installs over dialup anyway).

> Also modern cdroms are genereally too fast for old 486s, and cause the
> install to fail.

One of the 486s does in fact have a CDROM drive, a 36X one - is that
fast enough or did you want me to try it with a 50x one?

> Anyway, you can't go wrong with P75s for low-end work, and they cost next
> to nothing these days.

I'll bear it in mind but I still quite like old 486 DX2 66/100s.

--jcm



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